


we burn our hands

by buries



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Future Fic, Post-Series, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:58:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>new york pisses rain.</i> julie moves on — baggage follows. post-series, au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we burn our hands

**Author's Note:**

> written for liquid_garnet @ fnl_santa hosted at livejournal, 2009. [this is the apartment.](http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh318/echoesfade/inspiration/apartment.jpg) this was originally split up on livejournal and fanfiction.net. the fic jumps through time, minutes, hours, days, but that's ultimately up to the reader. au, post-series, doesn't take into account anything past season three. i know nothing of new york besides what i researched so please forgive me for any mistakes. 
> 
> title is from dashboard confessional's _currents_.

New York pisses rain.

Julie arrives in a taxi.

The _New York New York_ settling in her throat rams itself sharply away, sort of like it’s playing a game of hide-and-seek and the seeker’s very close to spotting it. She hands over notes to the driver and maybe she should’ve listened to her mother when she said umbrellas would be safer in the backseat rather than the trunk.

She kind of thought New York wouldn’t be as harsh as Dillon, the way the sun scathed down in sheets on the top of her head and the back of her shoulders. She expected sunshine rather than rain, a sort of _we’re glad you’re here, Julie_ like a fresh start is supposed to.

First impressions always lie. (She’s learnt this the easy way with Tyra Collette.)

There’s a passing feeling of doubt and Julie’s pessimism surfaces quickly, an alter-ego in some genetically wronged superhero. New York is a radioactive spider biting her with each slap of rain on her bare arms; suddenly her striped jumper (the sleeves pulled up to her elbows) feels as though it wants to go back _home._ To Kansas, back where it’s black and white, far away from the Technicolor and dancing munchkins. Julie tries to remind herself that, just because Texas is Kansas and New York is Oz, home is where the money is. 

It’s not her fault her clothing starts taking on human mannerisms as she struggles to gain her footing on solid ground. 

The gutters are overflowing with water and there’s so many people — too many, she thinks, and she remembers how she’d throw a fit about how four people in the Taylor family was four too many — bustling around, umbrellas almost taking out her eyes a couple of times as her bags are too heavy and soaking in her hands. The taxi driver’s gone, manners attached with him, and she pulls her bag with wheels (Tyra’s choice; this time, on their little shopping expenditure, they didn’t shoplift her lipstick) over the uneven slabs of concrete and to the daunting apartment building she’s been abandoned in front of. 

Rain hits like sheets, hard knives falling from the sky, and Julie wants to shout _why do you hate me so much?_ to the grey heavens. She’s had too much practice at being a teenager that she doubts this is a thing she’ll grow out of. Gaining some control over her stilled legs, she moves towards the building, pushes open the door and she’s in.

Inside, it’s nice, a bit cool as the air-con hidden somewhere is freezing the tiles and the water on her skin makes her hair bristle. Skipping over the details, she’s in the elevator, sans bags, and she’s almost at floor seven. 

At least the apartment is pretty.

*

First night in her apartment isn’t what she’d first expected. There’s no party, no boys, no alcohol or people sucking face. It’s nothing like the high school parties she’s been (fortunate) enough to go to.

She sits on the couch — _her_ couch, she smiles to herself — with a small bucket of ice-cream and a couple of bad teenage horror films that remind her of Texas and Mom and Tyra.

Somehow, this is better than a big bang.

*

She calls Tyra on the second day.

“So, how is it?” Tyra’s smiling on the other end, something clangs in the background and Julie tries to savour the sound. It’s so Dillon and Tyra and too far away for her to touch.

“It’s …” she readjusts herself on her stomach, the couch is a bit stiff, never having been sat, and the television is too loud, the remote playing a childish game of hide-and-seek among the mismatched pillows. “It’s lonely,” she opts for the truth, twirls her hair around her finger as _this_ is familiar.

Tyra seems to sigh an _oh baby_ , pout evident in her voice, “I’m sure it’ll get better. These things always do.” Tyra pauses, Julie’s grip on the phone tightens as the fear of Tyra letting her go flounders into her mind. Voices are vague in the background as she presumes Tyra’s hand is smothering the speaker part of the phone, “Momma says it just takes some settlin’ before you’ll be the belle of the ball.”

Julie grins, “Tell your Mom I said thanks.”

“So, what number are you?” Tyra smiles, and Julie bristles at the football reference; it’s hidden underneath shadows and it still manages to sting as though it’s as bright as the Texan sun.

“Something 33.”

Tyra laughs. “Make sure you know I miss you, Julie Taylor.”

*

Applebees doesn’t seem to exist in this part of the country.

Julie sighs, finding solace in a small diner, Starbucks, and her dad will grin later, with a good window view of the street and passing bodies. She pulls out a paperback from her bag and tries to succumb into a world she never really wanted in the first place and ended up leaving behind.

*

“Do you have any friends there?”

Julie shrugs, looks out the large window that passes as a wall, “Not really.”

Tyra seems to shrug, “Well, I’m sure there’ll be some people with the dance company.”

Not much has changed.

*

As a _Welcome to New York_ gift (capitals and all; she’d buy herself a banner but _damn_ those things are expensive), she buys herself too-big ‘Tickle-Me-Elmo’ pyjamas for half the price.

Julie tells herself they’ll fit ( _they’ll fit they’ll fit_ ) like it doesn’t require any effort at all. It’ll slot into place like a puzzle piece on its almost complete board. Her pants aren’t a new state, new home, a new high school. (Julie’s good at fooling herself.)

*

Mom calls a lot. She talks and talks and sometimes Gracie says a few bubbling words Julie’s started committing to memory. 

Honestly, she’s never felt closer to her mother until now.

*

Tyra calls every second day.

“Landry’s still convinced that his ‘football career’,” Tyra laughs, the phone shifts in her palm, “isn’t over yet. He’s all ‘Matt, hey, let’s be a Panther.’ It’s pathetic.” She sighs, Julie hears her falling against her couch, it whining under the sudden pressure. “He’s all ‘W.W.R.D.’ What _is_ that?”

“Oh,” Julie slumps on the couch; hit’s the palm of her hand on the arm rest as an alternative for her forehead, “my dad wanted to know if you knew where Tim Riggins was.”

“I don’t know,” Tyra sighs over the phone, swapping ears, “but Tim’s gone and done somethin’ stupid again.”

*

She has a neighbour who compulsively lies. According to said neighbour. Julie’s not Landry and she doesn’t desire to conduct science experiments to see if she’s being truthful. Call her naïve; Julie likes taking things as people say they are and waiting for those deep conversations that result in tears. Her lack of insistence on the factuality of Santa took her until ten for her mother to break and spill the truth.

Martha’s a twenty-something wannabe artist who paints everyday with her windows closed. She also seems to get Julie’s mail in her slot. 

On her side of her front door is a square painted on the wood; she says it’s for her dog, one of those dog window things that flap when pressed hard upon Julie’s unfamiliar with. No one in Dillon owned a dog. Martha’s dog is a secret, she says, and Julie finds herself over there every day, paint fumes enveloping her in a slow hug and Martha’s dog – the reason the corridor smells so bad every Tuesday – takes a liking to her leg.

She sighs; the males don’t change with the states.

*

Dad calls. Well, her mother calls, pushes him onto the phone like she’s some master at planning and he didn’t protest at all, didn’t see this coming. He’s a little distant, uncertain that she’s ready for this, this big move and the dance company and ‘shaking her lady bits’ in front of millions of people. She has to remind him constantly that she’s not Britney Spears.

He talks about football, because things never change, even with the states and Gracie’s getting taller, bolder, apparently more like her big sister every day. Julie says she’s impressionable in her defence – she doesn’t want her baby sister to follow the yellow brick road. Sometimes venturing into the woods and stopping to talk to a wolf can be good for you.

She knows its hard letting go. Julie’s never been known for cutting along a straight line; it’s always choppy and curved along the way. Circles turn into hexagons which progress into triangles until it’s a tiny circle again. She likes using the same piece of paper every day.

*

Her landlord is a nut. If they had a lawn on their apartment complex, he’d be measuring the height and making them paint the building sunshine yellow or girly pink. She’s imagined an apartment meeting, squashed in the basement or perhaps Taylor’s apartment, and having a political-type vote for the colour the building is to be painted. She’d vote for puke green.

It’s a Wednesday when he knocks on her door. She’s been keeping track of these events on her calendar with stickers she pinched from Martha. 

“Julie,” he says, wearing a boringly grey cardigan from two weeks ago. He’s bulging at the stomach and his hair is evaporating as quickly as the Australian water (according to the internet) and his face is mildly red as if he’s run a marathon.

She slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle that image from her mind.

“You’d tell me if someone was violating the apartment rules, correct?” his fingers tap along the clipboard he carries. It’s the equivalent of Julie’s handbag.

She nods, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, it seems that someone is violating the apartment agreement. The landlord and tenant agreement is very important.”

She knows, she was there when he took two hours to discuss that she is to not paint the walls of her apartment without discussing the colour, manufacturer and store she intends to purchase from. 

There’s silence and he’s looking at her expectantly, eyes bulging out of his head and arms crossed, fingers tapping at his elbow. She squeaks, “Yep.”

“Do you possess any information on a tenant violating the apartment agreement?”

She pauses, eyes darting to Martha’s door. “Nope.”

He stares at her, lightly growls at the back of his throat, and dismisses her with a “Fine” and a finger waving in her face as he says, “If you do, make sure to report it.”

“I will, sir.” 

She feels a bit bad for laughing once the door closes.

*

Knocking rattles her door and as she trudges towards it, feet heavy as her flannel pyjamas catch wind. It feels as though she’s walking through water, someone’s pool or the ocean and the sand is burying her feet and the water soaks heavily into the material of her pants. She concludes that they’re too large as the sides slap against her legs; she yells out “Who is it?” a little sharper than necessary, praying quickly to whoever is listening that it not be Taylor quizzing her about distrustful tenants and Martha’s ferret, her hand reaches for the knob. (She’s not used to the peepers, that little circle in the door she’s meant to use. She never used the one in the garage back home.)

It’s “somethin’ stupid” in the flesh. 

His mouth is slanted and his unruly hair spills into the fronts of his eyes, sort of like a shield, Julie presumes, but she’s not her father and there’s no need for protection from her — maybe the stench of the hallway (Martha’s secret dog has peed on the carpets aligning the corridor — _again_ ), but not her and her soapy girly smells. “Hey,” he smirks, nice little tug at his lips and her throat is suffering from a very severe drought. Her brows furrow together at this as he looks up at her through hair, sort of shy, sort of amused, sort of boyish (and she knows he’ll never grow out of it; _goddamn rally girls_ ruined him good) and then his eyes are trailing down her form to settle on her legs. “Tickle Me Elmo?” 

Julie’s eyebrows pull together tightly, arms crossing sharply against her thin shirt and she tries to look him up and down in that Eric Taylor way she’s witnessed many times growing up. She can only hope and pray she’s absorbed something from her father over the years of rebellion and mimicking, because being short isn’t as intimidating as television shows make it out to be. Fiery little packages hold very little power over tall towering ones. “What are you doing here?” she throws each word out at him as an alternative for a finger punching into his chest. 

Tim’s face is locked stupidly on amusement and his arm pulls at a strap over his shoulder. She finally takes him in; plaid shirt, stained jeans, duffel bag hidden behind his back — nothing out of the ordinary for Riggins. Time changes and this boy is still the same; it sort of reminds her of a song about the world moving and some poor bastard standing still. “Thought I’d come see my favourite girl.”

She rolls her eyes, feels her fists clench at her sides and her arms seem to twitch at this so she pulls on them, wrapping them tighter around herself. One of her recently plucked eyebrows curves towards her hairline and she moves her feet, taking on a stance known as _Girl_ with one foot thrown out while the other’s knee is bent. “Uh huh.”

He grins at this, spare hand pulls his hair back, some of it sticking behind his ear. “I just needed a place to crash.”

“So you came all the way to New York.”

He shrugs, the stupid Tim Riggins smile that’s gotten him into a lot of beds and a lot of hearts pulls and forms tiny dimples on his cheeks. (She’s a sucker for dimples.) “I needed more Flyer Points.”

She’s not even going to touch that.

“I didn’t hear an explanation, _Tim._ ” She thinks if she bites down on his name, sort of like how Dad used to, he’ll budge, fidget, show a tell and confess. It worked with her father, with her mother, even, maybe Grace if she had the time to grow up and have a whip for a tongue. It’s a Taylor blessin’, she’ll tell herself, her mother’s voice smiling it out in her head. (So maybe this is why she tunes into _Dr Phil_ most afternoons.)

He sort of bites his lip at this, ducks his head again and then he’s breathing out “Maybe I just wanted to see you?” which earns him a forced laugh.

“I’m not some ex-girlfriend, Tim. I’m not buying that crap.” She looks down, power hungry as she shuffles her feet and narrows her eyes, challenging him with a “Try again.” If Tim Riggins is keeping her from her sleep, she’ll keep him on his toes; the boy isn’t the most creative guy she knows. Julie also knows he’s never really worked for something in his life — maybe Lyla, but let’s not go there.

His eyes seem to squint as he looks off to the side, the dully lit hallway catches on tiny patterns carved on particular patches of his cheek. “Okay,” he looks back at her, breathes in deeply, “I’m not going to play with you.”

She cocks an eyebrow at this, a _go on_ in Taylor Talk.

Hand through hair again, he shuffles the duffel bag on his shoulder and she wonders, briefly, if maybe there’s a body in there. (He always used to say he’d make _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ real. He just needed a push, some motivation — every serial killer in Hollywood had some pity poor excuse to shed some blood and Tim Riggins wanted to prove that false. That, and he wanted Jessica Biel in a thin top, too.) “I kind of just needed to get out of Dillon, and I thought that my good, brilliant, pretty frightening friend Julie Taylor —” he sort of laughs at this “— would be nice enough to let me crash on her couch for a few days.”

She moves her shoulders, finding sleep knocking down her wall of resistance she’s trying to build. “Define ‘few’.”

“A couple of days,” he emits with a shrug. Still vague; Julie’s too tired to dance in circle for tonight. (A bit too dizzy, too.)

Julie breathes in through her nose, a long intake of stuffy air and she already doesn’t like the odour. Someone’s gotta open a window in this building. “Okay, fine,” she rolls her eyes, opens her door with her hands and pushes it back, stepping with it. She holds it open for him, gestures with a wide swing of her arm for him to move forward, into her nicely lit (and smelling) apartment. “Hurry up, I spent all morning trying to get rid of the hallway pee.” He pulls a grin at this.

She pushes the door closed and leans her back against it, watching as he takes in the apartment, the large space of a living room and the kitchen tucked neatly underneath a staircase leading to her room. With timid steps she moves forward, a mouse moving into a lion’s den and she’s got to remember that _she’s_ the lion and _he’s_ the mouse and not the other way around. 

“Okay,” she claps her hands together, needing to gather some air in her chest and movement in her apartment. She moves past him, pushes him a little as he’s sort of taking up most of the space in a pretty large area (so maybe she’s a claustrophobic tonight) and she’s tiny compared to his large build. “I’ll show you to the spare bedroom?” she doesn’t mean to frame it as a question, finding the intimidated sixteen year old surfacing quickly. She throws off the furrowed eyebrow and her shrinking stance with a straightened back and blank face. “Follow me,” she sounds too formal, like one of those concierges in a movie or on the main floor, and she’s moving down the side of the living room, past a small table with picture frames, using the wall as a guide. Tim’s steps are heavy — slow, but heavy — behind her on the wooden panels. 

There’s a bedroom door tucked neatly in a little alcove where the wall jutting out, holding her television, ends. Door ajar, she cringes at the tiny mess she’s left in there, like the wake of a hurricane that once tumbled ungracefully through a small town. Backing herself up into the corner, back hitting the smooth surface of pale brown plaster, she gestures with her hands for him to step into the room, “I promise it won’t bite.”

He gives her a look, moves slowly into the room as if he’s never seen one before. There’s shoe boxes everywhere and coat hangers on the dresser. It’s a bit messy, with her dance things hanging in the closet and her shoes (dance, leisure, too-expensive-to-wear-but-they-are-so-pretty) scattered around the floor, spilling out of boxes. Maybe she should’ve taken her mother’s advice and cleaned up. “Thanks, Little Taylor.”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Riggins.” 

Julie pushes herself off the wall, dances a little with her steps as she hums a couple of sounds from the alphabet ( _b, d, e_ ). She’s going to carry on as usual, she’s telling herself, she’s going to go up the stairs to her room, pick up a book and lounge on her bed or couch and read — and maybe indulge in a good cup of cocoa while she’s at it.

“Little Taylor” ruins it all.

She stops, spins, and he’s standing there, hands curled around the doorframe and head popped out, almost as if he’s going to run after he says something stupid (which is a large possibility with Tim Riggins) and there’s that idiotic smirk on his face she wants to scratch off. “By the way,” it pulls up, amusement thickly etched onto his face, “I need more than 48 hours.”

She narrows her eyes. Julie Taylor doesn’t do inside jokes.

*

Julie wakes up from a nightmare.

Kicking the sheets off, she slips out of bed, stretches her arms above her head and runs her hand over her face. The sun is as bright as Dillon through her windows and for that she’s grateful. 

Padding down the stairs, something stirs within her kitchen.

She pauses, backing up a few steps and squats close to the edge, her fingers gripping it tightly. There’s whistling, too, of a tune she can’t recall and she leans over further, risking her fear of heights and death by falling off the stairs. 

Swallowing, her fingers curl tighter as she does the most stupidest thing she can possibly think of. “Hello?” her brows clench together, and here she thought _Scream_ taught her the basics to horror movies. Jamie Kennedy would be so disappointed in her.

Her nightmare, however, is apparently true.

Tim Riggins steps out from his hiding place, possibly from standing over the stove, and he grins, eyes travelling over her pyjamas, stilling on her legs. “I guess Elmo’s unfortunate to be cast aside like that planet.”

“Pluto,” she says instantly, cursing her mother for drilling into her head that she’s a tutor 24/7 and expressing corrections shows intelligence. Julie decides to blink hard, willing Tim’s wide shit-eating grin to disappear. It also wouldn’t hurt if _he_ disappeared along with it.

He shrugs, “Poor bastard never stood a chance.” He disappears back to where he was hiding, and this forces her down the stairs. She almost runs, as if being pushed, down them, that irrelevant fear of tumbling to her death abandoning her. “You like eggs on toast, right?”

She blinks. He glances over his shoulder, stupid Tim Riggins Grin in place still, and Julie now knows how Tyra felt those few years back. 

“Guess I’ll take that as a yes.”

She doesn’t state otherwise. Instead, she presses her back into the side of the staircase and watches him grab her flowery oven mitts from a drawer. She feels like she’s on her couch watching the cooking channel. The toaster pops up bread and he places the mitts on the counter, grabbing the bread and placing it on a plate.

There are two set out.

He slides the mitts on, flexing his fingers in them and grinning, amused, and he’s lost in his own little world for now. She watches him turn off the stove, pick up the pan and glide over to the counter, placing the eggs (egg? they’ve melted into one big puddle of something) onto the spare plate. He tosses the mitts near the sink and heads towards her silver fridge. 

Julie’s legs feel twitchy; a surge of adrenaline rushes through her as if she’s back in high school preparing herself for humiliation during PE. “What are you doing?”

He closes the fridge, a tub of butter in hand, “Making breakfast.”

“You make breakfast?” he grabs a knife from the drawer and digs into the tub, pasting a golden piece of bread thickly. “Right,” she seems to answer for herself, “stupid question.”

He’s still grinning. Prick.

“You like butter?” he glances up, knife ready to swipe. 

She nods. “So, wait,” she holds up her hand, his eyebrow cocks as he’s already slathered on some butter. She twirls her hand in the air in a gesture for him to continue what he’s doing. 

He doesn’t pick up on it.

Julie has to remember that Tim Riggins isn’t familiar with her outward characteristic traits like Matt, once upon a time. They don’t have the sign language thing down like Seth and Summer on _The O.C_. (She’s not sure if she wants to reach _that_ stage with him.) “You know how to work a kitchen?”

Stupid grin doesn’t fade, though the eyebrow settles down and he’s slapping on the butter like layering on the blankets at Christmas. “Yeah,” he chuckles, it sounds like rough air. “Sort of became friends with it after high school. Because of Billy and Mindy –”

“And the kids,” she grins, fingers twirling in her hair. “How’s that going?”

He looks up, “You don’t talk to Collette?”

She blinks, hand dropping to slap against the side of her barely covered thigh, “Oh, yeah. I do. Just ...”

“Making conversation,” he almost singsongs. He’s different, she concludes, and she leaves it at that.

Licking her lips, her palms rest against the staircase. She tries to melt into it, watching him move back towards the fridge and dropping the tub onto one of the shelves. He’s back to the round table with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, attempting to evenly divide the egg and placing it on two pieces of bread. 

She pushes herself off, walks timidly towards him as though this isn’t her apartment and her cutlery. Pulling a chair out with a cringe as it scraps soundly against the wooden floor, Julie sits, rests her arms on the table and watches him pick up two pieces – one with egg and one without – and lay it on the plate she saw the scramble of eggs occupy. “You don’t need to make me breakfast, Tim.”

“Wasn’t,” he grins, placing a piece of burnt toast on top of one covered in egg. He glances up at her, grabs a knife he discarded to the side and cuts the sandwich into two large triangles before bisecting those. “I was just up and hungry,” he slides the plate with the four triangles in front of her. “Plus, you sleep like the dead.”

She opens her mouth to protest, watching him move towards the fridge, stop, and reach up without having to stand on the tips of his toes and open a cupboard door, grabbing two long glasses. Slamming the door shut, he goes to the fridge and grabs her carton of milk and kicks it closed with his foot, starting to slack in his gracefulness of moving around her kitchen in possible impatience to eat. “I don’t sleep like the dead!” 

Tim pours her a glass of milk, sliding it towards her, and then his own. He cuts his square of bread into two and grabs the spare stool and slides it near her before taking his place on it. His eyebrows rise, “You do.”

She narrows her eyes, “I don’t. I was just –”

“Comfortable?” he smirks, and takes a large bite of his triangle.

Her eyes resemble slits. Whatever she says will lead to some sexual innuendo she’s not prepared for this early in the morning or their little … truce. She’s not sure if it’s a truce; they’re not enemies on a battlefield. They’re not friends either. “Fine,” she grits out, trying to submerge her thoughts into the deeper parts of her mind, locking them away for another day, “I sleep like the dead.”

He smiles, taking another bite then downing it with milk. 

She looks down, picks up one of the small triangles that reminds her of Mom and being a kid and life before Dillon, before Tim Riggins and his shit-eating grin. She takes a bite, “This is good,” she says with her mouth full, hiding her words behind her palm as her manners slip in minutes too late. “Thank you.”

He shrugs, “S’not a big deal.”

She cocks her eyebrow at this.

“So,” Tim claps his hands, dusting the crumbs off his fingers over his plate and the other triangle. “Did you always sleep in that?” Tim’s eyes scan over what she calls pyjamas – a pair of shorts she found in the pyjama section with Tyra before she left Dillon and a tank top with thick red stripes she found in New York – and grins broadly, dimples in his cheeks she’s only seen a couple of times in Dillon making their grand entrance. He then diverts, grabs his glass of milk and almost drinks it all while looking at her from the corner of his eye.

She glares, “No.” Resting her elbows on the stainless steel, she takes another bite of her toast. “It was hot.”

He grins, possibly biting back words she knows her father could possibly hear from Dillon. “Stripes?” his eyebrows rise, his fingers pull at his toast, egg spilling out of it like liquid breaking free of it’s container. He sighs, pushes his elbows onto the table, “Very you.”

She looks down at her plain shorts and top, shrugging, “Tyra said something similar to that before.”

He shrugs, taking a large bite of the broken piece of toast, “Wouldn’t have you any other way, Stripes.”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Pig.”

*

She learns things she overlooked before.

Tim Riggins doesn’t like orange juice with pulp. He likes it fresh, always has a glass ready for her when she wakes up. He’s an early riser, despite the stereotype that follows him. “I’m not drunk anymore,” he says on the third day with a shrug, answering her questioning gaze.

She nods, sits on the stool, “That’s good.”

“Been sober for a while,” he turns his back on her to face the stove, a pan sitting on the metal forks. “Also learned to make omelettes.”

Julie rests her arms on the table, crossing them, and uses that as a support system as she pushes herself up as though she can see over his broad shoulders. “Pancakes?”

Looking over his shoulder, his eyebrows draw together, “Aren’t they the same thing?”

She laughs. 

He eats cereal, like half of a box in a day, if she’s lucky, and he doesn’t mind Hallmark movies, just as long as there’s a hot babe in one of them that gets down and dirty with the pool boy (bonus if he’s a football player).

It becomes something of a daily ritual. Even _Dr Phil_ and an _Oprah_ episode get tossed in there so she has some material to talk to Tyra about on their Tuesday night phone calls. (Tuesday’s the day of advice, as Tyra says. Apparently New York is smarter than Texas.)

He starts Googling things on her laptop. Her web browser history lacks in porn. (She learns a couple days later that pancakes and omelettes are different – one’s neater while the other’s messy.)

A week passes and it feels like normal, except there’s another body to count for and she’s buying some things from her shopping list she’d never buy before. Like orange juice and oranges and lots and lots of fruit. She’s also hiding her ‘womanly things’. They haven’t discussed it but Julie sort of suffers from having a split personality – there’s Julie the Adult and Julie the Whiny Teenager. Julie the Whiny Teenager she’s sure he’s all too familiar with blushes deep red at the thought of Tim Sex-on-Legs Riggins seeing her feminine products in the bathroom while Julie the Adult says he’s a big boy who has probably seen a lot worse.

Julie the Teenager wins that battle. 

She goes on like normal, sweeping the floor and washing her own clothes, (sometimes his, but he seems to do it himself, which is shocking on it’s own) and it’s like he doesn’t want to be there. It’s not in the bad sense, but she sometimes gets this feeling as though he wants to sink into the walls and not disturb her. Sort of like baking a cake; he doesn’t want to make a loud noise as it heats in the oven. Something like a ghost or a shadow or a memory of some sort; sometimes she thinks Tim Riggins wants to be invisible. (Which is hard; he’s _Tim Riggins_ — and he’s tall, so he takes up a lot of the earth’s space.) 

He stays out of her way; he’s allergic to the stairs that lead to her bedroom and he sticks to his own bathroom, the tiny one that sort of smells like Girl and has all her bits and pieces in there, like a spare hairdryer and the make-up she bought too much of. (She moves the girly things out from there – the extras, just in case she runs out. She likes having back-ups.) He doesn’t mind her walking into his room and getting things from the closet, making more of a mess when she leaves. (She sees him trying to be neater; she’s heard of the state of his house from Tyra.)

Tim Riggins is also good at changing dead light bulbs. She’s stopped hurting her back from standing on the stainless steel table, bending at awkward angles while getting dust from the bulb socket wedged into her eye. All he does is climbs onto it and settles on his knees while he twists the bulb out. 

She also suffers from a jealousy problem.

Sometimes, she thinks, it’s nice to have another set of hands and a familiar face in a new town. (She doesn’t really mind that it’s _him_ anymore.)

*

Tyra’s talking a lot, rattling off about college and Landry and how Mrs Collette won’t stop calling her. It’s routine, Julie wants to say, but she remains tight-lipped, a slow smile pressing against her lips. “She refuses,” Tyra exclaims, and Julie can see her arms flailing, hysteria tinting her voice. 

“Mom’s sort of calmed down,” Julie shrugs, “calls me every Sunday, though.” It’s meant to act as a string of hope for Tyra to grab onto. All it does is sink into the pit of her stomach and sprout, digging its roots into her nerves.

She feels desperate to gain back Tyra, the one who’s too opinionated for her own good and cracks jokes at other people’s expenses. She’s stopped talking smack about Lyla for three phone calls now.

“Tim’s here,” she says in a hushed tone.

Tyra laughs, “Looks like New York just got dumber.”

*

“You still with Seven?” Tim asks while they’re watching a _Maury_ episode. It’s just getting good, with this woman claiming the seventh man is the father of her child. She turns to see him looking at her, all sluggish on the couch and taking up space on the coffee table before them, legs crossed at the ankles.

She tries to push herself into the pillows and her corner of the couch, tucking her legs more underneath her. Julie keeps her eyes on the television when she gives him a pissy little excuse of a shrug. 

Tim nods, sucking in his lips momentarily as he looks back at Maury, the devastated woman running off the stage. “I get that.”

* 

She’s locked in the kitchen, making herself a sandwich as Tim refuses to budge from the couch. He claims he makes the best sandwiches in Texas, yet every time she hints at him getting off his rear and making her one, he simply smirks and replies with “I know what you’re up to, Jules” and flicks the channel while snuggling into the couch like it’s his football jersey. He looks so damn comfortable it makes Julie’s skin prickle.

It’s when she hears shuffling for the fifth time she turns around, eyebrows furrowed as Tim’s moving towards the door, metal keys wrapped in his palm. “Where are you going?” 

He gives her a shrug, tossing over his shoulder in that bored manner of his “Gonna fetch the mail” before he slinks out the door, slamming it hard in that Riggins way of his. It’s embedded into his bones, and sometimes she thinks he confuses her with Billy.

She pauses, knife in hand, and stares at the door. 

Julie makes a claim for the couch.

*

Martha grins like she’s the landlord catching the betraying tenant. “He your boyfriend?” she asks, smudging wet paint on her cheek as she darts into her kitchen, making a racket of moving things around. She finds a bottle of water and kicks the door closed.

Shit, Julie pinches the hem of her shirt at her back; Martha must’ve seen Tim fetch the mail this morning. With Martha’s back turned, Julie allows the fear to melt onto her face; she tries to get rid of it, the gnawing sensation that she’s been caught. The mask of nonchalance she’s sort of practiced in the mirror since Tim’s time spent with her parents back in high school pulls over her face. It requires a lot of effort to keep still. She furrows her eyebrows, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Martha rolls her bright blue eyes. They make Julie feel as though they’re a lie detector of their own technology. “Julie,” she tuts, approaches her slowly as if she’s a wild animal that’ll get spooked if advanced on too quickly. “You’re hiding someone in your apartment.”

Martha grins like she’s solved the world’s biggest crime and Julie shakes her head, “No.”

“You’re breaking Taylor’s rules.”

“No, you are,” she glares, her eyes settling on the small dog trying to settle between Martha’s legs, “with that – that ferret thing.”

She laughs, “Julie Taylor, I hope you’ll follow in my footsteps, girl. Be discreet and always a step ahead, and Mr Taylor will never know.”

Julie looks around, shuffles her feet and that’s a mistake. The ferret starts dancing on her leg — and that’s putting it lightly.

*

He reminds her of her father, sometimes; especially when it comes to her couch. _His_ couch, he likes to correct with that stupid smirk wrapped around his lips and with that brush of his hair that hits the skin of his forehead. She scowls, Tami Taylor present in her smaller form, and tries to kick him off, pull him, push him. He’s like the Tim who lived at her house, flirted with her aunt, and connected porn to their cable. It’s a big brother role that unsettles her stomach.

She’s sitting at the corner of the couch, Tim’s feet pressing against her leg as he’s sort of strewn over it. He throws himself over it like it’s a bed or something, and she looks at him from the corner of her eye, searching for the remote. It’s on the arm of the couch he’s leaning on, elbow tucked nicely into a dip he’s created that she bets is more comfortable than her cramped space.

Some Keanu Reeves movie is playing, and there’s an Aretha Franklin song they keep singing out of tune. She’s seen this movie one too many times and she’s itching for that Katherine Heigl film she recently bought while out buying the groceries. Whenever she hints at watching something different, a film of the romance kind, Tim will fuss, have one of his ‘manly’ whines, and tuck the remote underneath his body where he knows she won’t even attempt to pry.

Tonight, however, she thinks it’ll be different.

Eyeing the remote, Tim shuffles, pressing his feet more firmly into the side of her thigh. She tries to curl up even more. The way he’s pressing into her, she thinks he’s trying to kick her off the couch. She wouldn’t be surprised; he’s done it before. 

She doesn’t know how she’s going to do this. A play runs through her mind, jumbled up with another, and she thinks that maybe Dad will be proud she even remembers them. She goes for something else, though, a Tyra Collette plan mixed in with Lois and she’s going to hate herself if she recollects any of Lois’ sexual daydreams she felt the absolute need to share over food.

Julie’s never looked at certain chips the same since.

Yawning, she raises her arms slightly over her head, eyes on the screen because Tim’s sort of a sharp tack and he’ll catch on way before she realises and ruin her plan of justice if she flickers her eyes to him to assess his reaction to her over-the-top gesture. It’s not fair he gets Keanu three times in three days while she has to wait for Katherine since last week. Wrapping her fingers around his ankle, she tries to push him away; his feet retaliate by lifting and resting in her lap, shifting a little until he seems satisfied with his new perch. 

She’s rock still.

Her fingers still gripped around his ankle, Tim smirks, a slight exhale of air encases all of his amusement, and she presses her lips into a thin line. “I’m sort of ticklish there,” he says around his stupid smirk, “so if you’re going to give me a foot rub ...”

Narrowing her eyes, she pulls her hand away as if burned. Picking up his feet between the tips of her fingers, making sure her nails dig into the skin, she tries to move them off of her and to the floor. It takes a bit, his insistence of staying in her lap is heavy against her thighs and she shifts to a point where the heel of his feet is approaching dangerous territory. With a breath, she stands up, his feet moving to the floor as his lower body sort of slides with it before his feet claim her spot as if she was never there. 

Looking at the arm of the couch, the remote has disappeared. 

Glaring down at him, she moves, blocking his way of Keanu. Her hand dives into the side of the couch, hand searching for the remote he’s tucked away somewhere. It’s not behind the corner of the cushion like she discovered three nights ago, nor is it anywhere near the side.

When she looks at him, he’s grinning. That shit-eating grin which causes her to wonder if he ever dared pull it with Lyla; with Tyra, it was a definite. “Always pegged you for a groper.”

Hands on her hips, her back is ramrod straight while her bangs fall into her eyes, itching at her skin the one time she wants to seem threatening and not at all soft like she knows she truly is. She wants to be an illusion of her self she wishes existed. “Where’s the remote? I’m not watching this anymore.”

“But _I_ am,” he shifts, rests his cheek in the palm of his hand as he sees the television with the side of her blocking a small portion of the screen. He doesn’t seem phased like she usually would, with huffs and puffs and exclamations to _please_ move.

Frustrated, she exhales, using her second minuscule plan. She’s never tried guilt-tripping Tim Riggins before, but she figures that perhaps she could try. “So? You’ve watched it three times.”

He shrugs, “I like to make sure I pick up on things I missed before.”

Rolling her eyes, her hands slip to the front of her jeans, palms settling flat there as her fingers clench. The desire to clench them into visible fists is weighing heavily on her fingertips. “Check the internet.”

“You don’t let me on your computer.”

She huffs, “Fine, whatever. Watch your stupid movie.” Tyra once told her, back when he lived with her, that if he ever stepped a toe over the line that Eric Taylor was bound to set, that this glare, with the hands on the hips and the line of her mouth, would set Tim straight. She pulls it, with a little bit of her mother in there because she knows that, regardless if he finds her hot, she scares the shit out of him and he’ll step back into line without a quip baring his jerk-like opinion on the matter. 

He just smirks, quietly laughing to himself, and she stomps away, up the stairs to her room and finds that paperback she’s almost finished reading. Tomorrow she’ll go to the bookstore, buy that ridiculous vampire novel Lois rattles on about in her emails, and smack him over the head with it.

Ten o’clock passes by, paperback finished and she’s digging around for another one, she finds him watching Katherine Heigl.

*

Tim likes bringing up Matt a lot. 

Usually, he’s on the couch, back to her, and she’s in the kitchen – or her room, the front door, coming from his room – and he asks. At first, she thought it was a matter of being shy, or unsure, and maybe he didn’t want to read her face or see the flicker of doubt and hurt flash in her eyes and coat her voice. Now, though, when it turns into _something_ , like their ‘banter’ (if that’s what it is), she thinks it’s not out of friendly curiosity. The smirk is present in his voice and he says it with that bored drawl, Texan accent sort of thick whenever he makes a passing mention of Matt Saracen or drawing him in when the number seven is involved somehow. She thinks he sees it as a game that he’s the only player of. He tosses his name around like a lazy reference in _Gilmore Girls_.

She’s started counting how many times a day he mentions him. She’s considering bringing in the liquor.

“So, Seven,” he grins to himself, hand wrapped around the remote, clicking it to some channel with the number, “he’s back working at that Frosty place.”

“You frequent there, yet you don’t know the name?” Julie slams the fridge shut, cringing at how obvious her irritation is showing. Mumbling to herself, “Why am I not surprised?”

“You cut me deep,” he says, bored. He settles for a football movie. “He asks about you.”

“Oh, really?” she wants to roll her eyes, throw her water bottle at his head. “How would you know he still does it? You’re in New York, he’s in Texas.” Moving towards the kitchen table so she can sit with her back to him; maybe that’ll block out how loud his amusement is. She can feel his smirk thick on the back of her neck. Sarcastically, Julie the Whiny Teenager makes her grand entrance, gasping, “Are you telepathic?”

He grins, “Jules, if only. Wouldn’t mind seeing what’s floatin’ in that pretty little head of yours.”

She rolls her eyes, slides her novel on the table and picks it up, flicking to the bookmarked page; she sighs, bored, “Does that work on all the rally girls?”

“You’re just special.”

Sometimes she’s fortunate enough that he drops it without coercion.

*

It’s the third day he’s blocked her, and she’s thinking that when that fourth day comes, this’ll be a stir repeat until she learns that Tim Riggins likes fetching her mail.

She thinks, maybe, that it’s because he runs into the girl with legs that go for miles on the third floor. Or perhaps it’s the M.I.L.F on the eleventh. It drives Julie insane; her palms have started to itch every time she makes the tiniest shift towards the door, he bolts for it. 

She’s never seen him move so fast.

Sometimes envelopes are ripped open; at first she minded, would scowl like her father in response to Buddy Garrity’s antics, but it starts growing on her, like Gracie Belle and her mother’s constant cooing.

Now, on the third day, she finds that it’s one thing less she has to bother with. (Bonus: She’s willing to transfer her fear of paper cuts onto Tim.)

*

“We’re going out,” she says, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge, digging out the bottle of water she filled up last night in preparation for this. There is no notebook filled with pros and cons. She’s going on impulse for once; god forbid, she’s doing a Tim. Slipping it into her handbag, she slows down her pace, seeing Tim looking at her from over the couch.

“Like, outside?”

“Yes, Tim,” she nods, starts moving again as she picks up her striped jacket sitting on the window sill. “Outside, where there is fresh air and birds. You like birds, don’t you?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs, “they’re kind of annoyin’.”

She rolls her eyes, “I’m going outside today, whether you’re tagging along like a good little shadow or not.”

Tim’s shit-eating Dillon grin that she thinks should stay in Texas laughs at her — _laughs_ at her in this mocking way that makes her skin burn, and it’s not the regular Tim-Riggins-skin-burning kind of burn she’s heard Lois moan over. Nor is it how she figures a rally girl feels when Tim Riggins does The Eyes with the stupid Eyebrow Manoeuvre. “I think I’m a bit too big to be your shadow, Taylor. Thought you were good at math.”

Julie moves around, pushing her jacket into her bag as she tries to find her shoes. She thinks he’s moved them, or she has, because things aren’t where they were before he turned up and she started hiding things that were too embarrassing to sit openly on her bathroom vanity. Fact is, things have moved, and so have the days. “I’m going to have a hotdog today,” she speaks loudly, continues on as if he never really made a dig at her, “and buy a CD and maybe even a book. You know normal things that I used to do before you decided to hog my couch.”

He grins, shuffles so his arms are resting on the top of the couch, his chin moves to them as his eyes follow her erratic movements as her brain shoots off a list of things at different intervals. At some point, between the second glance into the kitchen for cheese slices, and checking under her stairs for her sunglasses, she thinks about getting a dog. Or a muzzle for the one that’s taken up home on her couch during the day, for right now she wishes she had one on hand, “I’ll share the couch –”

She breathes in deeply, raises her voice to act like a muzzle so he’ll just shut up for once in his stupid life, “I may even go to the park, you know, the park. It has grass and people toss Frisbees and maybe you could even play football with some stranger who owns a pet Chihuahua.”

Tim’s still grinning, however his eyebrows draw together and he runs a hand through his hair, “Chihuahua’s aren’t pets.”

“I need a new handbag, too.” She can’t hear him. She’s going insane in her own mind, and under five minutes. Something’s cracked in Julie’s resolve and she needs to go out. All she can hear is _la la la_ echo in her head and drown out the amusement and silent laughter of his eyes and grin and the hint of it tainting his voice thicker each time he speaks in that bored Texan drawl of his.

“Are you always this psychotic when you stay indoors for weeks?”

“Do you like becoming a limb of a couch, Tim?”

He sighs, makes a big deal of getting off the couch and runs a hand through his hair. “Alright, alright,” he grins, “but I’m not taking the subway.”

She rolls her eyes, “ _Cloverfield_ isn’t going to happen.” He’s at the fridge when he peeks out from behind the door, eyebrows raised as if there’s a possibility that a fictional monster can come true. He’s ridiculous. “A big spider thing with power lines for arms isn’t going to shoot out some spiders for the sole purpose of biting you so you’ll explode.”

Tim slams the fridge, a bottle of water in his hands as he heads for the door. She follows him, almost treading on the heels of his feet as _she_ becomes the shadow. “And Jay told me polar bears can’t be on tropical islands,” he opens the door for her, “JJ Abrams is like Jesus.”

*

Julie’s timing is Olympic gold.

Few people move to the edges of the sidewalk as she and Tim walk in the centre. She’s never really had this kind of luck before, always sleeping in regardless of how annoying and shrilly her alarm is, and always stepping out too late when the night is a dark blanket of chaos and she can’t see the stars anymore. She’s forgetting what they look like.

The crowds of New York take time to get used to. She’s unsure how much, since she’s been here for a while and she still fears them, dodges them like the bees in her parents’ new backyard.

“So,” Tim’s brows bunch, he swings his arms and he looks straight forward, not taking in anything around him. He’s so different from her, doing the opposite to what she’d expect, what she did herself. She still finds herself drinking in the buildings and the different greys, as if they’ll change, because something has shifted since the last time she’s stepped out of her apartment and she thinks maybe it’s due to Tim’s bright red t-shirt. “Where is the destination, Taylor?”

Pushing her slipping handbag strap onto her shoulder, Julie grins, pausing as the pavement comes to a pause and a pedestrian crossing is painted before them like a red carpet. “When I first came here, I was so lost. You know, sort of like Dorothy, I guess. Well, I found my own yellow brick road, and it lead me to this really cool place.”

“Yellow brick road?” he grins. 

She rolls her eyes. “I’m sharing this with you, because, like I said, you’re a shadow and shadows follow their bodies.”

“So I’m on your body?” the little pedestrian man shifts into green with spread legs and she avoids glancing at him, feeling his smirk burn down in heated rays upon her neck. 

When they’re on the other side of the road, continuing straight, she makes the effort to look up at him and roll her eyes. “No, Tim.” She raises her finger, considers poking out one of his eyes – they’re either brown or hazel, she’s not really sure, never been close enough to decipher the shade she sometimes presumes is demonic black. Narrowing her eyes, she takes her finger away, thinking that he’ll need his eye for whatever he does to consume his life now that high school and college, at least for him, is over. “Never. Don’t think it. Stop thinking it. When pigs fly, it still won’t happen.”

A whistle emits sharply from between his teeth, shaking his head as he looks straight ahead, “Delusional is a good look on you, Taylor.”

She huffs, “Remind me to poison dinner.”

Tim hums, grin plastered on his face and her fingers tingle to pull it straight off like a bandaid. Another crossing, Tim palms the streetlight, she wrinkles her nose just thinking about the germs his skin’s contracting. With a loud sigh, his hand almost brushes hers as he swings them wildly by his side, “Are we there yet?”

“Just around the corner,” she pushes against him and he turns left, slowing slightly as his eyebrows draw together and she moves away. The sight of it still brings her childish excitement, déjà vu of when her parents surprised her with a car before everyone’s lives shifted and college seeped it’s gritty fingers into her friends a little too early for her liking.

She skips forward, leaving Tim to walk slowly behind her, disbelief in each step. “A hotdog stand?” She greets the boy she doesn’t know the name of, referencing him as ‘Dave’ in her head and to Martha. She hears Tim’s feet shuffle on the pavement, stopping behind her, “You weren’t kidding.”

She shakes her head, “I never kid about hotdogs. Or this stand.”

His eyebrows don’t know whether to furrow, burying lines across his forehead, or rise into his hairline. His voice is lacquered thickly with disbelief as if this is some sort of joke orchestrated by Ashton Kutcher, “This stand is Oz?”

Julie just grins, ordering a hotdog with everything on it.

“Make that two,” Tim drawls, small smile gracing his lips. He’s slowly coming around, getting comfortable with the idea. Of what, she doesn’t know. She’s glad, for once, that the person standing in the cramped silver box with a crumpling umbrella is a boy. She reaches into her handbag, fiddling with the thick wallet her father sent her in the mail. “I got it.”

“No,” she shakes her head, slaps his wrinkled note away, “it’s on me.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“You can make it up to me later,” she hands her notes over, smiling as she’s handed her hotdog. Tim reaches for his. Moving away, she guides him around the stand, venturing to the pavement that lays behind it. “Like by giving me the television tonight. There’s a movie I wanna see that’s on.”

He shrugs, “Just as long as it’s not that Matthew McConaughey movie.”

“It has Kate Hudson,” she says before biting into her hotdog. Flavours shoot in all directions inside the cavern of her mouth and she closes her eyes for a moment, savouring the taste. Pressing a finger to the corner of her lip, she swallows, looking at him as he’s already devoured half of the thing.

His shoulders move again as he comes to walk beside her, biting into his hotdog, “Don’t care. Can’t stand the guy.”

She shrugs, “Or I could always put your toothbrush in the toilet. Better yet,” she jumps in her step, “give it to Ferret to chew on and sneak it back into your bathroom.”

“Ferret?”

Realising her slip, she takes a bite of the hotdog, saying around it, “Never mind.”

“Your plan sucks.”

“I could always kill you in your sleep, you know,” she runs her tongue across her teeth, coming to a slow stop at another set of lights. She spins, facing another way and Tim follows suit. “Bury you in the park.”

“We’re going to the park?” he says, mouth full, and he wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “Did you bring a Frisbee, too?” Twisting the cap off his water, she watches as a quarter of it disappears. Her bag swings, she feels her bottle hit her side hard.

Rolling her eyes, she starts across the street, hotdog still heavy in her hands as Tim seems to finish, clapping his hands together and curling the napkin into a ball. “Central Park is nice, Tim.” She keeps walking as he keeps following, jogging slightly so he’s not behind her. “Maybe you’ll enjoy it.”

“While you’re burying me alive?” he says with a smile, and he eyes her hotdog, half of it finally gone as they turn down another street, “You gonna finish that?” She clutches it to her chest, eliciting a laugh from him. “Alright, alright,” Tim sighs, grinning. Running a hand through his hair, she watches him finally drink in the city, eyes darting everywhere. It’s like he’s growing restless and to cure it he watches a few people dressed smartly walk across the pedestrian crossings scattered all over the roads, their phones pressed tight to their ears. He turns back to her, stopping at another crossing with the little red man glaring at them, a business man, sans phone, by his side. “Know a diner or something around here, Taylor?”

Nodding, she takes another bite of her hotdog, “Yeah. We’re going there.”

“Sweet,” he eyes the hotdog for a moment before glancing up, starting across the street.

Tim’s face falls when he’s in front of the café. “Starbucks?” he looks to her, eyebrows drawn down in confusion as he looks at the building again. “Your little spot is Starbucks?”

Julie shrugged, “It says ‘star’. So I thought you’d be spurting about how this is your home planet.”

“Do I look like Williams to you?” 

She laughs, “When you start referring yourself as ‘Tim’, then, no. Sorry,” she shrugs, exhales loudly as she watches him, his face still stuck on disbelief. “You know, if you keep your face like that it’ll freeze.”

“You like Starbucks. I thought you were unique.”

Cocking her eyebrow, she presses her hands to her hips, turning so she’s looking at his profile, “Are you calling me a unique snowflake, Tim Riggins?”

His eyes lazily run up and down her, assessing how serious she is in the angles of her elbows, her knee jutted out and her handbag slipping to her elbow. His hand pulls at the strap, plopping it down onto her shoulder. “ _I’m_ paying this time.”

“Did I bruise your ego back at the hotdog stand?” she grins, following him as he walks inside, grumbling.

He pauses, looking back at her as she moves around him. “Window?” he suggests, she thinks, with a slight rise of his hand.

She shrugs, follows the line of direction his hand pointed to and sits at a booth by the window. He sits opposite her, hands folded in front of him on the table. Julie fiddles with her handbag, placing it beside her.

He fiddles with his water, rolling it across the able as she watches him, seeing the child emerge from within. She grins, sighing, “This up to your standards?”

Tim shrugs, speaks to the bottle, “Company makes it better.”

Rolling her eyes, she places her palms on the edge of the table, feeling nerves tingle up her spine as she searches her head for something to talk about.

“So,” he draws out, “you and Saracen.”

She sighs.

He stops pushing the bottle, stands it upright, crosses his arms and leans forward. It feels like a business deal, something illegal and hush-hush; she resists the urge to copycat him. She pushes her back against the booth, pushing herself away from him. “You still talk to him?”

She shrugs, “Once in a blue moon.”

“Huh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she bites before she can think, eyebrows drawn hard as she feels the lines burn into her forehead. 

He shrugs, stares at his water, “Nothin’.”

“Nothing means nothing, Tim.”

Cocking his eyebrow, he just shrugs again, a lazy ascend of his shoulders. His shirt wrinkles. “Just thought you two would be livin’ the fairytale life,” he mumbles, professing something she’s not sure she’s entirely comfortable with. She’s tired of assumptions and living up to expectations of people she’s left far behind.

She nods, resigned, feeling suddenly tired, “Yeah, me too.”

“People change,” he says, and it’s an excuse. It has it written all over it, like he once believed it too, and this is how he’s grieving, trying to move forward from it. She wonders if she disappointed him.

Julie watches him, his fingers tapping things into the tabletop. She imagines him drawing plays, formations for the golden years when everything was just a little bit more simpler than they are now. “So you and Lyla?” he stiffens at this, shoulders a bit straighter, finger pausing his drawings. She clears her throat, pushes herself forward with confidence that didn’t exist years ago, “Last I heard, you were living together again.”

Sucking in his lips, his eyebrows rise, giving her an answer she doesn’t wish to decipher. “Yep,” he exhales, “that was it.”

“So, what happened?”

His mouth pulls at a slow grin, “You sure are nosy about my love life.” There’s an implication settling there, something he doesn’t seem to have the guts to say with actual words.

“Same can be said to you.”

He flicks his hand, a gesture of _touché_ , and Julie thinks, for a second, that maybe they’ve mastered some sort of personal communication. This thought causes a swirl of lead to shift in the pit of her stomach. “Didn’t work out,” he shrugs it off as if it’s nothing, as if Lyla Garrity and Tim Riggins isn’t something people talk about. He runs a hand over his forehead, burrowing in his hair, “History repeats itself, Taylor. You know that?”

She stays still. Of course she knows. Matt and her were mirroring her parents, even when she voiced it, went to the Swede, made childish mistakes she was allowed to make. Toss in the same ingredients a few years later, stir, repeat, and it happens again, different obstacles but same ending. 

“She got bored,” he shrugs, eyes on the table as he resumes drawing. “I think she hangs onto what Six promised her. Back before …” he sighs, darts a glance at her, and looks towards outside the window, a calm sea of people shuffle on by, some voices sinking through the glass to her ears. “You can’t give everyone what they want, let me tell you that.”

“You’ll work it out,” it sounds automatic, even to her, and Tim glances up at her, eyes on hers and she glances out the window before shifting her elbow to the table, resting her chin on her palm. Fingers curled, she taps them against her chin, “You two are destined.” She watches his fingers, his palms on the table, still.

He exhales loudly, “Don’t believe in that bullshit.” Her eyes dart up to him, watch him lean back against the booth, cross his arms over his chest, “You make your own ‘destiny’. The decisions you make, Jules, they sometimes change the desired outcome. You think something’s going to happen but one slip up stops it from actually _being_.” He shrugs, hands curling around the table as he hunches forward, “I slipped up. I stopped things from happening.”

“You can still work it out.”

He shakes his head, “You don’t know Lyla Garrity,” he grins at this, pride drifting into his voice, that mask of not caring at all about Miss Garrity slips away so suddenly Julie finds herself blinking repeatedly, “she’s as stubborn as a mule.” He sighs, glances up at her, mouth tilted in this amused way that leaves her feeling hollow. “I’m doing what she says. First time in my life, I’m gonna move on,” he finishes it with a shrug, settling back into the booth.

Julie licks her lips, nodding, “I guess you and I agree on something, Tim,” his mouth curves as she moves her elbow, leans back into the booth and her fingers press against the table. She fishes for her water, twisting the cap; she needs to get this taste out of her mouth, a foul wetness clinging to every inch of her that surfaces every time she thinks about letting go of hope and Matt.

Tim’s smile is a line, corners faintly curved up. He grabs his water and as she twists her cap on, taps it against hers, “Cheers.”

She presses her mouth into a line as he takes a long swig from his.

“So, Taylor,” he licks his lips, a wide smile spreads across his face, “what about that Frisbee?”

*

After their conversation in Starbucks, Julie’s fingers linger on the phone. She keeps coming back to it, running in a cycle where she’ll do something to occupy her mind and she’ll end up here, at the phone. She’s in her bedroom, sitting on her bed, with the portable phone curled in her palm.

Before this, she used to think about calling Lyla. Things transitioned between them from mere acquaintances to something liken to friends. (Lyla didn’t like leaving for college without having some friendship support, Julie figures, since she’s all alone and Tyra’s not going to offer Garrity anything but snark.) So Lyla sort of pushed herself into Julie’s life, came to family dinners, sometimes accompanied with Tim, and when she left, they emailed. The emails had an on-off relationship; sometimes Lyla would email with small updates Julie pretended she understood and Julie would reply back with the same thing. _Dance was good, the pay was great, I miss you._

She has to give Lyla credit, though. She was there when Tyra wasn’t.

She thinks about calling Lyla now, pressing unfamiliar numbers into her phone and watching for that hitch of breath, the politeness of a sweet voice and awkwardness to ensue before she spits out the whereabouts of Tim and wait for that breath, the pregnant pause where Lyla will play it off like Tyra sometimes does. 

Playing matchmaker has never been something she’s ever been fond of. Lois is to blame for that. But she’s starting to rethink it, ever since the second bowl of ice-cream Tim insisted she have before he claimed her television to watch a Jessica Alba movie.

She sits the phone in its cradle.

*

Watching movies until 2AM becomes a thing for them. Julie doesn’t wish to acknowledge it, the fact that they have a ‘thing’ and that it involves a word that suggests something plural. But – and, against her better judgement, she doesn’t want to admit _this_ – Lois is stuck in her head and this becomes a _thing_ between the two of them. It’s a thing, by definition and fact, and she knows Lois will agree because it’s what she dreamed about in the cafeteria or library or in Julie’s room after the tornado incident.

He’s curled up on the couch, like usual, and he’s becoming typecast as Couch Boy in the movie she’s writing a script for in her head. She’s sitting on the floor, back leaning against the couch and she tries so desperately to not let her head flop backwards and just fall asleep, prepared for that kink in her neck from passing out in such a stupid position. Tim shifts on the couch, arm hanging dead against the side, and it’s coming closer to her, sort of like how dark shadows in nightmares do. She eyes it, watches it in her peripheral and he’s sighing, yawning loudly occasionally. It pisses her off because this is a movie she wanted to watch and he’s ruining it.

They’ve been watching a Molly Ringwald marathon, and Tim’s all in for it because Molly Ringwald is hot and she thinks that maybe he’s one of those boys who has had some sort of Alyssa Milano fantasy about her. She doesn’t want to know.

But he’s been sighing for the past hour, shifting every few minutes, and she has to rethink her whole status on him and his secret passion for Molly Ringwald. He agreed in that bored tone around six, and he’s been verbally silent ever since.

Shifting again, Julie tries to block him out, eyebrows clenching tightly as if this will help her ignore him. His legs breathe against the back of her head and his hand is so close to her shoulder she really wants to cut it off. 

He does it again, just when it’s getting to the scene she always finds herself so invested in. However, tonight, it’s different, and all she can focus on is Tim’s dangling limb and how his fingers brush over her shoulder so casually. She glances at him, his head resting on pillows she told him he needed propped up on the arm of the couch unless he wanted a neck that didn’t quite agree with him tomorrow; he’s watching the movie, blinking occasionally, breathing as quietly as he usually does.

Except his mouth opens and he sighs. 

“You know, whenever you watch Angelina Jolie movies, I don’t make as much noise as you,” she presses her lips into a line, crosses her arms over her chest, and she’s missing out on what brings her into the movie and leaves her breathless at the end. It also doesn’t matter that she’s sort of lying, because while Angelina was running across the screen in some leotard thing while shooting at some hot guy, she’d been huffing and puffing and slamming doors as though it’d make him stop and ask her, nicely, if she wanted to watch that Sally Fields movie. “It’s like living next to a train track.”

Tim seems to grin, “Sorry.” 

Her eyes assess him with a flicker; the pull of her mouth loosens as she directs her attention to him. “Tired?”

Shaking his head, he glances at her, that stupid pull of his mouth that is the foreshadowing of the shit-eating grin she doesn’t like; she looks back to the screen. “Not even close.”

“Okay,” she bites her lip, sighing herself (and it’s like some common cold he’s passing around, because now _she_ feels restless and just wants to fuss about), and her crossed arms go languid against her chest. “Just shut up, okay? You made me miss my favourite part.”

He chuckles air, his fingertips being pushed by the vibrations of the movement against her shoulder. He’s still after that; every time his mouth opens, she seizes with fear, drawing herself out of the scene and the desire to quote the lines as they’re spoken. He doesn’t speak, stays silent, just blinking. Soon, and it’s like five minutes later, just when she’s getting into the movie, his fingers settle in her hair. 

She doesn’t remember when he got so close.

*

She wakes up around five. There’s no reason she can think of as she stumbles down the stairs, hands rubbing at her eyes as the sun is starting to slowly ascend in the New York sky.

There’s movement on the couch and she pauses, heart starting to race at a million miles per hour, and she wonders, briefly, what Jamie Kennedy would do.

He definitely wouldn’t be approaching the noise.

Standing at the back of the leather couch, she sees Tim lying on his back, arm over his head while the other dangles off the couch and the blankets are a mess over him, tangled with limbs and cushions.

She glares, turning on her heel and moving towards the sink, grabbing a glass and filling it with water. There’s a magazine she left on the table that she decides to read in spite as time slowly ticks by. She’s not willing to elaborate on why she’s doing this.

Julie goes through five half-filled glasses of water before Tim wakes up. It takes him a bit, with the sheets wrapped around his legs like a second skin, for him to rise and rub at his eyes, stretch, and run a hand down his bare chest. He starts moving towards her before he stops, finally seeing her. She grins, the cat having caught the mouse, presses her chin tightly to her shoulder, “There a problem with the bed?”

He shakes his head, fingers scratching a spot in the centre of his chest, “No.”

Breathing in out in out, she licks her lips, surveying him. He’s tired; hair sprayed everywhere, half of it covering his eyes thickly and his fingers move sluggishly over his skin when she decides to pay attention. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, shuffles towards the sink to splash water over his face. “Just used to the couch.”

“Oh,” she flips a page of the magazine without looking at it.

“Plus it has a great view,” he smirks, that Tim Riggins grin he tosses at the rally girls and she glares, her fingers pinch the corner of the magazine tightly, marring the glossy paper. He wipes his face with the dish towel and she has to remind herself to shove it in Martha’s washing later in the day.

She colours furiously and ducks her head to read Britney’s latest scandal.

*

The first time Dad calls her, it’s about Buddy Garrity. Somehow he’s gotten it into his head that she’s a willing ear to listen to him bitch and moan about the man. 

Julie blames her mother.

She sits at the kitchen table, magazine laid out in front of her so she has _something_ of interest to focus on. She doesn’t understand what her father’s going on about; she only remembers ever seeing Buddy Garrity half-naked, wrapped in a towel, in her bathroom way back when she was way too innocent for this garbage. She doesn’t want to hear about Buddy’s intimate spilling of woe about his long, lost wife and darling daughter.

“I’m not his ‘B.F.F.’, or whatever you girls call it,” Dad says, phone shifting in his hand as Mom’s somewhere in the background, correcting him. “Anyway, he keeps coming up to me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Uh huh,” she sighs, parroting the words she’s been repeating for over ten minutes now. Flicking the magazine page, she stares at a crossword featuring Hollywood productions and products as Dad keeps yapping on like she’s said something useful.

Eric pauses, licks his lips and seems to hum something to Tami before she hears his hand cup the phone, his voice hushed and desperate and it reminds her of that wild animal look he gets in his eye sometimes when it comes to female things and Grace. “I don’t know how to make him go away.”

Julie shrugs, “Wish upon a star.”

“Don’t give me cheek, Julie. I’m being serious. Why aren’t you concerned about the sanity of your father?”

She sighs, smacks her own lips together and tries to summon up something from the snippets of what he’s said that stick to her mind like gum to the bottoms of desks. “Just avoid him.”

“Okay,” Eric smiles, and he says the usual things, like he misses her and that love phrase Julie only parrots because she sort of wants Buddy Garrity naked in her bathroom shoved out of her mind.

Her mother is the one who gives him the useful advice.

*

They seem to lay down a law. (Tim seems to, but Julie’s not going to admit that.)

Speaking about Lyla Garrity is the equivalent to saying Voldemort. She thinks it’d be common courtesy for him to not bring up Matt, but he does. She doesn’t know why she expected any better. However, and she has to grin at this, he _tries_.

Trying does not mean succeeding.

He usually does this when they’re watching a movie. It occurs more and more when it’s a Bill Murray one. Stifling the urge to sing the tune to _Ghostbusters_ , Tim has to sigh, shift slightly as he seems to curl more into the couch. “So, Seven –”

“Are you infatuated with him, Tim?” she pulls her knee closer to her, the couch groaning under the slide of her bare foot. She furrows her eyebrows, mouth setting into a line as Tim’s sitting sluggishly, arms folded over his chest and he throws her a lazy look.

He shrugs, shaking his head, “No.” He turns back to the television; saying in that lazy drawl of his Julie’s starting to find grating her skin, “Just making conversation.”

In retaliation “Well, let’s talk about Lyla, then” in different forms is brought up with an ugly smirk she doesn’t like. It seems to get worse each time Tim decides he likes playing the Groundhog Day game.

He flinches.

*

Tim suggests they go out. He’s on a lets-be-healthy high and he presumes fresh air would do her good. “You’re lookin’ quite pale, Julie. Texan women are never pale.” Apparently the sun is also a part of his wannabe-Jenny-Craig plan.

She shrugs, spoon swirling in her bowl, “I’m not a Texan woman.” She yawns, trying to smack some cereal bits into the milk and have them sink like the Titanic. They keep floating up, and her minor irritation floats erratically through her small movements.

“Dillon through and through,” he mutters to himself, slamming the cupboard and getting a bowl of whatever’s left of the cereal. He tends to mix them up, Lucky Charms with Cornflakes and something else that completes the combo. She cocks her eyebrow, mouth full, and he gets this look on his face, like as if he’s glowing or something, she’s not sure what it is but he gives off signals when he’s about to be crude. “Like a threesome,” there it is with a grin. He looks up at her with a tilt of his head as he moves towards the fridge.

She rolls her eyes, swallows, “It’s nine in the morning.” Her spoon makes the rounds again, her cereal experiencing its fifth whirlpool for the morning.

Looking over his shoulder, he grabs the milk carton and leaves the door open; she hates it when he does that. He’s at the sink, bowl perched on the counter beside it, “So?”

“It’s like alcohol,” she plays with her cereal, spooning some of it up to have it drop back down into the bowl, causing some droplets to splatter on the kitchen table. Grabbing a tissue, she wipes at it absently, “Wait until it’s noon or something.”

Tim’s back at the fridge, seconds before it’ll start beeping about staying open for too long, and he moves away from it, kicking the door closed as he grabs a spoon from a drawer and reaches for his bowl that’s filled to the brim. “It’s bound to be noon somewhere.”

Some habits don’t change.

*

He takes her out, kicking and screaming. She’s sluggish at first, his hand wrapped tightly around her wrist as he pulls her along like it’s nothing, some normal thing that’s in his daily schedule. Her arm is so small compared to his large palm. She feels inadequate, like an unknown island to his internationally famed continent.

“You should get a striped shirt,” he says, hotdog in hand coated with everything. He’s not a picky eater, she learns, and she takes a bite of her own hotdog. “You know, to keep up with the persona.”

“There is no persona. I have no persona.” He slows, drops the curled up napkin into a bin and dusts his hands off, licking at his fingers, “Why don’t you wear shirts with 33 printed on the back?”

“Can’t find none.”

She shrugs, wipes her top lip with the side of her hand, “There’s the internet.”

“I’m not allowed on the internet,” he grins, palms sliding over his jeans and tuck his fingers into his pockets.

She rolls her eyes. “This is why we can’t have nice things. I let you do things and you throw this back at me.”

He grins, laughing at her, “You sure are a real ball of nerves around me, Stripes.” He’s resisting the urge to ruffle her hair like she’s some kid, that Bo or Bradley or something who Tyra sometimes talks about. Tim doesn’t know what to do with his hands, sliding them in and out of his pockets and wringing them together, cracking bones and stretching them above his head as they walk slowly.

Glaring, she curls her hand into a fist and tries to punch him into the buildings, “No nerves here, Pig.”

Tim’s laughter grows louder as he runs his knuckles over the patch of skin beneath the sleeve she attempted to pound into the mismatched brick buildings. “Your fists are tiny.”

“So is your head.”

He shrugs, “Better that then something else.”

*

Lois sends her too much spam mail that she sometimes deletes the actual emails. It’s an accident. She never does it on purpose. Julie thinks the guilt would suffocate her. (Or Lois’ phone calls.)

Today, however, is not one of those days. Though Julie really wishes it was. 

Sitting on her bed, she checks her emails. (Tyra called earlier to tell her to get her ‘bony little ass on the computer and write her back’ because phones are a little too hard and Tyra Collette’s never one to repeat herself.)

Lois blabs on about herself, as expected, and Julie usually doesn’t mind, but today she’s tired. She’s been going over the pros and cons of scratching that itch in regards to Lyla and dressing up as cupid. She talks a little about things Julie cares about, like how Matt’s working at the same place again, Smash Williams visits his mother like the good boy he is, and how Tim Riggins has disappeared off the face of the planet. 

What makes Julie roll her eyes is the fact that Lois can never resist not throwing in a few clichéd romance plots, saying she thinks he’s off to end it with Lyla so he can be with her because he finally realised she existed and was the true love of his life. It’s a bunch of sentences littered with run-ons and acronyms neither Julie nor Google can decipher. She gossips a little too much, throws in her own fantasies mixed in with the actual facts, and a long time ago Julie stopped attempting to draw out what was fact and what was fiction.

She presses an icon so she can reply, however the cursor blinks back at her, all innocent in that way that Grace started out, and she knows what its thinking. Her fingers hover over letters that, when pressed one after another, won’t add up to make a proper word. 

Siting in silence, she shifts until the leg propped underneath her is comfortable and those tingles she’s not quite fond of approach her bent knee as if summoned by some unknown entity. Her leg becomes numb as she stares at her computer screen.

Julie deletes the email.

*

“You should eat more fruit,” Tim says before biting into his red apple.

Julie cocks her brow, digging deep into the fridge for the leftover pasta she didn’t eat last night. “Yeah?” she peeks out from the depths of her clean fridge that’s starting to pile up with water bottles and food products she knows she doesn’t take a liking to.

He perches himself against the table, bouncing the apple in his palm before biting, “Yeah.” Tim waits until he swallows; Jason Street’s perfect manners seem embedded into him today, “Being the Coach’s daughter and all, I thought you’d be eating like a Panther.”

She laughs, head back in the fridge, and she hears it echo back to her, a bitter sound she doesn’t think she’d pick up on if she was facing him, “I’d want to be far from that.” Licking her lips, Julie wonders if that was the wrong thing to say, as silence spills across every corner of her apartment and she wants to stay hunched, face in the fridge, until the end of time. Clearing her throat, she tries to make amends, “Rebellion was such a fascinating phase, Tim.” She bites her tongue, pushing the sarcasm back, closing her eyes to help with the force. Her attempts at rebellion are still a sore spot; a wound that liquor keeps melting over. “I liked not doing what others expected.”

She hears the crunch of his teeth sinking into the apple. “Yeah, I get that.”

Sighing, she slams the fridge shut, perching her hands on her hips as she examines the kitchen. Spotless as usual, a magazine lays on the kitchen table with a pen hidden between the pages as she’s taken a liking to crosswords and Hollywood’s test on how much she knows about its gossip. 

Nothing seems out of place.

Now, if she’s honest with herself, she’ll start understanding that that lost sense niggling at the walls of her mind, like how she thought her particular cup was in the cupboard closest to the window but was in the freezer, and she swore she had put it in the cupboard, is her swimming in the river of denial. Julie likes hiding from facts, sometimes, and this one is one in particular she likes being blind to. The niggling turns into minor thumping and it is her seeming out of place.

“You okay?” he says, apple paused in front of his face.

When she looks at him, snapping out of her stupor seconds after he speaks, she sees this look on his face. It’s like he knows what she’s thinking and is biting back the smirk with the _you lost?_ remark that’ll cut her deeper than she’d like because of the lost look etched upon her features like she’s woken up in a year she doesn’t remember ever being in. She blinks, “Yeah. Just – did you eat the pasta?”

Pressing his lips together, he bites the apple, the red disappearing quickly to be replaced with a yellow-cream, “No.”

“Oh.” She feels stupid, _real_ stupid, like when she let her father think Tim tried to take advantage of her drunken state back when she was a stupid sixteen year old aiming to please by doing all the wrong things. Julie stands, stumped.

Tim moves, opens up a door under the sink and tosses the apple core in. “I think you may have thrown it out,” he shrugs, as if he’s trying to hide the underlying intention of making her feel better. 

He’s giving her a compass and she’s sort of grateful for that.

*

A tune is knocked into the wood of her door, an incessant banging that interrupts her reading as she tries to ignore it, willing it away. Tim’s too busy watching football to move. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

“I was hoping you would,” he grins, and she glares at his feet hanging over the top of the couch. 

Pulling the door open, Martha’s standing there, smile lighting up her face and she smacks a piece of paper into Julie’s chest. So much restraint must’ve gone into that, she thinks, as Martha’s always hitting her in the head with her mail she finds in her slot. “Fifth Floor Fred,” she grins around the dim nickname, “is having a party. Gonna be a blast. Biggest bash of the year, blah blah blah. That’s how high schoolers speak these days, right?”

Julie shrugs, hearing the leather couch groan underneath Tim’s shifting, the volume turning down as the loud commentary and cheering from a pre-taped audience becomes a hum. “Wouldn’t know.”

Martha rubs at her eyes, “Well, it’s tonight. I sort of forgot to give it to you?” She winces at this, though her grin barricades any sympathy Julie feels towards her. Martha likes snooping through her mail. She’s convinced she’ll find a love letter of the _Atonement_ kind from some boyfriend Julie’s obviously keeping hidden. “Anyway, you free to be there?”

She nods, “Yeah, I guess.” Her fingers play with the knob of her door. It whines a little, and she presses her palm against it to stop her fingers from trying to pull it from it’s hole in the wood.

Standing on her tiptoes, Martha grins, pointing over Julie’s shoulder, mouthing “Is that him?” while Julie tries to push her away.

“Bye Martha,” she shuts the door on her laughing face.

*

“Fred’s having a party —”

“Fred?”

She rolls her eyes, “Fifth floor.” He cocks his eyebrow and she huffs, hands pushing hard against her hips, “You borrowed his stupid Nirvana cds or something.” She pushes her bangs off her forehead, breathing in as her patience wears thin and Tim’s looking back at the television again, stupid football on the screen. She tries to pick up as if he hadn’t needed the reminder, “ _And_ I thought I’d extend an invitation to you so you wouldn’t do something stupid like turn up and try to pull me away from a very civilised, normal party.”

He pushes himself up on the couch a little, his legs bending at the knee as he tries to look at her from over it. “Why would I come in and pull you away?”

On their own accord her eyebrows pull up slowly, her bangs moving a little as though it’s dancing with a light breeze. She bites the _you’ve got to be kidding_ and plasters her palm on the side of her leg to keep it from smoothing the tension in her forehead and the desire to crease the skin there. “You and I don’t have a good reputation at parties.”

His eyebrow is cocked and she tries to go for a Tami Taylor stance, hands on her hips and her leg jutted out, bent, eyebrow cocked sharply and she’s counting the breaths until he caves, declines politely and passes out on the couch. “Okay.”

She frowns. “What?”

“I said okay,” he says to the television, a Billy Riggins tone (exasperation, an underlying message of _piss off_ hidden between the letters) she’s heard Tyra bitch about before coating his voice. 

“Oh-okay,” she stutters, smoothes her hand on her leg. “It’s at seven.”

“Okay.”

“And it’ll be boring.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m serious. Knowing these people, it’ll probably end at eight. Seven-thirty if they’re super boring.”

Looking at her from over the couch, he’s pushes himself up further now, nose visible and the cool smile, one of reassurance, so unfamiliar to her, pulls at his face, “I said okay, Jules.”

She nods, a bit too much, but it’s a nod and it has him chuckling out bits of air and he’s getting off the couch, arms thrown over his head as he moves into the kitchen. With her eyes following, she feels like a high school kid, one of those rally girls (and she never wants to be one of them) as she breathes out “Okay.”

*

She spends too much time fussing.

He calls from down the stairs, legs pressed against the sides, for her to hurry up. Two hours early. 

Julie sort of wishes she had listened to him. Two hours and thirty minutes later, she’s trying to find her other earring. Trying to look in the bottom cupboards without getting on her knees, she gives up after Tim’s third holler.

She wears a red dress. Bright in shade, a v cut exposing her collarbone, and it ends halfway down her thighs. It reminds her of a summer dress, the kind her mother liked to suggest she buy whenever she graced her parents with her presence. She doesn’t try to make an entrance, fussing for her handbag her mother gave her for her twenty-first, and tosses her shoes down the stairs. 

“You could’ve heeled me to death, Taylor,” Tim grins, running a hand through his hair from his spot at the bottom. It’s like he hasn’t moved, though the television has changed, projecting music and pop starlets into her living room. Tim wears his usual get-up; jeans and a grey t-shirt with some catchphrase printed on it in block letters instead of his plaid button-up.

She shrugs, sitting on the second last step, he hands her her shoes. She places her foot in, pulling the strap around her ankle. “Wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.”

He stands before her, eyes watching her press her leg to the floor, shifting in her shoe so she’s sure she won’t trip out of them or lose blood flow to her toes. “You really don’t care what happens to me, do you?”

Looking up at him through her bangs that are on the verge of needing an emergency trim, she presses her lips together, hand running over the tip of the shoe as her toes flex. She should’ve worn them in before tonight. “No, not really.”

“Nice,” he’s grinning, “real nice.”

She shrugs, “Never claimed to be.”

With both of her shoes strapped on, she presses her palms into the steps, pushing herself up. Tim’s hand is floating in the air, and she grabs it as he pulls her off the stair. “You look nice.”

She shifts, “Thanks. You –” he grins as her eyebrow rises at his boots, stained with Texas, “– don’t look all that different.”

“Enigma,” he grins. She rolls her eyes, walking by him and running her fingers through her hair as she grabs her keys from the kitchen table, pushing her feet awkwardly to the door. Tim bolts after her, spitting out “It’s the look that’s in” when they’re in the hallway, her door slamming behind them.

Pulling at the strap on her shoulder, she grins, “Conforming, Riggins?” 

He grins, “Never. I’m setting the trend.”

She nods, walking towards the elevator, “And I’m marrying Brad Pitt.”

Her finger moves to press the button, looking dead with its half-scratched arrow pointing down. Tim punches it with a stupid grin instead. 

*

Fred’s party isn’t half bad; considering he’s bordering on twenty-eight and he watches too many _American Pie_ movies. Pies with cream sit on a few tables around the place with “Do not touch” signs planted in them like the flags on the moon, and the cardboard cut-outs she remembers getting a glimpse of at the Riggins’ house. There’s probably a virginity bet going on here, too.

Tim strays to the kitchen as she spends some time doing the rounds, talking to tenants she only sees once in a blue moon. Martha’s there, in the corner, and waves at her like she’s a kid in high school and sometimes Julie thinks she’s Lois in disguise. That is until she grabs a cardboard cut-out of some woman in a bikini and makes obscene gestures at it – that’s when she morphs into Tyra. 

The party reminds her of the few she attended at Dillon. Crowded, though there’s breathing room, and plastic cups and dancing; lots of dancing with old, cheesy songs from the ‘80s and ‘90s. 

Deciding then and there, she only wants to stay for an hour. She doesn’t deserve this kind of torment until a little later in life.

She stands in an open spot, listening as bands she remembers decently liking as a little kid play loudly in her ears. A headache’s going to be her punishment later. Tim’s beside her, cup in hand, and it’s an image she’s always had in her mind whenever she thinks of Tim Riggins. 

He takes a sip, “Having fun?” He has to yell over the pop music of Mya.

She shrugs, “Beats Louis’ party.”

“What was that like?” he looks down at her, cup held high as he takes another drink. His eyebrows are furrowed and she wants to laugh at his curious expression. He thinks these parties are like the Dillon high school ones, the celebrations of Panther victory every Friday night.

She grins, “Mummies and coffins; mind you it was large cardboard boxes painted black.”

Tim’s eyebrows rise, his hand pauses at moving his cup to his lips as he regains his footing, “Halloween?”

“Birthday party.”

He smirks, blinking a couple of times before taking another drink, “Of course.” The cup disappears from his hand and he’s wiping his hands together. Julie runs her hands over the side of her dress so her hands have something to do.

Her mouth slants as Mya finishes up and Spice Girls comes on. She laughs, “Great music.”

Tim grins, leaning down towards her, hands clasped behind his back, “Wanna dance?” He looks a bit awkward, although his eyes sparkle cockily and she knows that this is a challenge of some sort. 

She glances at him, watches the tug of his lips and the amusement sparkle in her eyes. Her foot taps against the beat and she knows, sooner than later, she’ll start singing. “Sure,” she shrugs, and she follows him towards what people have claimed to be the dance floor.

He keeps his distance, slightly swaying as Julie finds herself reliving her repressed teenage daydreams of dancing on her bed while singing into a hairbrush. Tim laughs at her as she starts to mouth the words. “Isn’t there a movie for this?” he has to lean in close to her so she can hear him over the music and her own singing that’s getting louder.

She laughs, her eyes settling on him as she breaks into a sway, catching her breath, “Spice Girls? Seriously?”

“Guess I’ll have to get cultured on this one.”

She raises her eyebrows as her answer and she closes her eyes, smiling at the thought of Tim Riggins watching the _Spice World_ movie. She’ll have to buy herself a video camera so she can upload it to Youtube.

Julie feels hot, has been feeling it all night, and her furious movements have only intensified it. The air in Fred’s apartment is stuffy and the dance floor is worse than her original spot near the kitchen. Her legs feel hot from the movement and the familiarity of moving somewhat awkwardly like this, and her neck feels heat at embarrassment as she knows she’ll never live this down for the rest of her interaction with him.

There’s warmth against her mouth and its Tim kissing her.

*

Julie slams the door, walking frantically as she tries to unbuckle her shoes’ sudden tight grasp from around her ankles. Tim’s right behind her, shutting the door much more quietly, hands in his pockets and this is the Tim she remembers, the one who seems so nonchalant that nothing is running hysterically through his mind on fast-forward like hers.

She glares, but not for too long. She can’t even look at him. 

It takes a few angry moves of her fingers, her nail getting stuck underneath the little buckle, to get her shoes off so she can kick them towards the couch. (She was going to kick them at him, hit him straight in the jaw, but for safety reasons — and how bad her kicking aim is, her blood is football not soccer — she goes for a place that can be known as another limb of Tim Riggins.) 

“Why’d you do that?” she finds herself saying quickly, “Why’d you do that in front of all those people?” Julie turns, hands on her hips and she’s glaring, jumping to conclusions as she sees a slight shift in his face. He’s a bit flabbergasted, mouth open and eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he’s sort of swaying from approaching her and staying put. “Do you think this is some joke? That you can just _kiss_ me and there’d be no repercussions? Because if so, you obviously don’t know me.”

“Jules —” he tries to approach her, but she moves back, finding those hysterical tears that are supposed to be on her cheeks swirling slowly in front of her eyes. 

“Is that why you came here?” her eyes narrow even further, and to a point all she can see is darkness, “You playing with me, Tim Riggins? Are you taking back what you said when I took you into my house several weeks ago?”

He smirks, “It’s not a house.”

She narrows her eyes, hips jutted out as her hands fit into the grooves. 

Tim’s hand attacks his neck and he sighs, looking everywhere around the apartment for something. Dillon provided an escape and New York lacks the familiarity and personal touch of home. “I just wanted to kiss you,” he shrugs out, hand fallen forlornly by his side. “Why is it such a big deal?”

“It’s a big deal, Tim,” she presses the name out like a slap, “you just can’t kiss me –”

“Why not?”

She stumbles, losing her pacing, the words she feels that have been in her head for years suddenly gone. “Because – of Tyra.”

“Tyra?” he smirks, laughter edged into his voice as his hand runs through his hair. “Because of Tyra? That’s weak, Julie, real weak.”

She licks her lips, “Fine then. My father.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?” He pauses, “Right, of course. Bringing in the parents when you feel insecure. Look, Jules, if you don’t want me around, just say so. I’m a big boy.” 

Her hand curls around the fabric of her dress. She can’t think of anything better to do. With her mouth having gone dry and that nagging voice inside her head that she’s convinced belongs to Tyra has gone, pissed off when she needed it most, and she’s left gaping at him – literally gaping – like a fish as he watches her, eyebrows raised and hands by his sides. She’s trying to swallow words from the air so she can spit something at him, anything.

Tim just grins, shit-eating and Texas and she wants to tell him to get it off his face. Better yet, she wants to slap it; have her hand personally wipe that stupid grin off his stupid face and go down in the history of some equally stupid textbook. The rally girls will have her assassinated for hitting his pretty little face, but she thinks it’ll be more than worth it. At least Tyra would be proud.

Instead, he approaches her, and she’s stiff as a board, stiff as a statue, stiff as anything – and her mind wanders and she’s disgusted, thinking she’ll call Lyla tomorrow and ask her to pray for her if she’s still into that stuff – and he’s in front of her, his shadow swallowing her whole. He’s leaning down and his hands are on her wrists, sliding up her arms quickly and he’s kissing her.

She thinks she’s stupid if she didn’t see this coming.

It’s a light press of the mouth, his hands settle on her cheeks and he’s pulling her in like she’s metal and he’s a magnet and her hands grip his hair, pulling him down harder onto her as she opens her mouth to him. He’s grinning, and she feels the shit-eating grin of Tim Riggins that she’s learnt to love and hate at the same time feel _so good_ against her mouth, a betrayal of how it affects her internally. His fingers mess up her hair, drawing circles in the strands, wrapping them around his fingers real tight. Shit-eating grin (and she thinks it deserves capitals at this state, though there’s pros and cons being scribbled down in the meantime) slides into just a grin, one she thinks she remembers from Matt, however she knows it’s different, it _feels_ different as it slides into an open mouth kiss and Tim’s pulling her up against him, arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders and his hands slinking to the small of her back.

“We don’t have to do this,” he breathes, hot air caressing her mouth and it’s her that pushes her mouth against his neck. She tries to turn his face to her so she can feel that warmth again; her lips tingle hotly without it. His stupid stubbornness to face her as his head has turned to the side, eyes watching from the corners, pisses her off more than she’d like, frustration building in her clenched fists pulling the tight fabric of his shirt. Letting go, she allows the fabric to breathe, her frustration to dissipate. Only for a moment; it’s only fair, she reasons, as he doesn’t try to quench her irritation. She sucks at his neck, hands trailing over his chest, fingertips pulling at the fabric of his shirt, “I didn’t come here for this.”

She nods, figuring it’s the best way to bring his face to hers so she can drown out those tingles parading incessantly on her lips. The skin of his neck isn’t doing anything to flush it away. Drawing back, she places her palms on either side of his face and pulls him towards her, “Shut up.”

Gladly, he obliges, a smile rests on his lips as he opens them underneath her, his hands settling on her back, running up and down her spine causing her to arch into him. She feels his fingers teasing the fabric of her dress, pulling at it as though it’ll cave away; all he’s succeeding at is wrinkling it.

He pulls away, sliding his hands down her back and follows her dress until it ends halfway down her thigh. Pulling at the hem, he grins, and she feels like as though he’s just discovered puppets in some pawn shop. His palms are hot on her legs as he bends down, breaking away from her. He pulls her up, her legs wrapping around his waist and he carries her over to the stairs, taking them slow as though they’re unfamiliar — and she guesses they are, considering his allergies and what she likes to call his ‘medical condition’ — and once they’re up there, in her room, she grabs his face and wraps her legs tighter around him, causing most of her dress to bunch at her waist.

They move to the bed — him walking to it while she mauls at his face; she has to give him credit for memorising the layout of her simple bedroom within the few seconds before she grabbed him like some savage whose been devoid of any water — and they’re descending, her back hitting her soft sheets and he’s on top of her, knee between her legs and hands pressing against her sides. She feels the pressure of his hands on her legs, skimming up and down. He plays with her dress, whichever part he can get his hands on, sometimes pressing hard enough that she can feel him, fingers folding the fabric like paper.

His lips move to her neck, descend down to her collarbone and he’s still so far away from her, allowing too much space to be between them. They’re like Texas and New York and she resents him for it, for memorising maps and being the mathematical brat he is by keeping away from her like some force is stopping him from pressing hard against her. However, he lets himself hover, hand over her breast, thumb starting circular motions, and then, suddenly, he traces the lines in her dress, sometimes dipping his finger hard into her skin.

In retaliation, she wraps her legs tighter around his waist with a struggle due to the gap between them. She has to lift herself up, most of her weight shifting to her shoulders as her legs skim his sides. By straddling him, she thinks, she’ll be able to squeeze out all the bullshit and make him not be such a tease, the brat that he is, and that he’ll just do what Tim Riggins does and stop frustrating her to the point of seeing stars. He moves a bit down, and she feels the pain emerging at her neck fade away as she retracts from his slow fall, still keeping breathing distance between them. Her feet push against his legs, toes trying to curl into his jeans, and he seems to grin into the skin exposed by the v cut of her dress.

Fingers fluttering over his clothed back, they find the hem of his shirt, pulling it, nails skimming against newly exposed flesh and he breaks away from her, raising his arms so she can pull it over his head. She drops it to the side and her arms wrap around his neck, pulling her up so she can kiss him, mouth open, and fingers playing with his hair. He smells of her shampoo.

His hands find her spine again, causing her to arch her back, pressing sharply into him, making it easier for his flat palm to run over her dress. His finger skims up the zipper once he finds it, and he pulls it down slowly, as though he wants to be sneaky and be unheard, a silent thief of some kind in the night, and she smiles against his mouth, her hands pulling at his hair before sliding over his hard back, the muscles moving under her palms. Once the zip reaches its end, his hands slide up her back parting her dress like the red sea, leaving heat swelling in their wake; his palms skim over her shoulders, pulling the dress down until it bunches at her waist.

Her hands travel over his back and slide against the skin near the waistband of his jeans, fiddling with the silver buckle as his lips move down between her covered breasts; he pauses at her stomach, tongue flickering and lips sucking. She arches, getting his belt undone and his hands are over hers, pushing them away as he undoes his zip and he grabs them, placing them over his pockets as he pulls them, hands gripped tightly around hers, down his legs like water. 

With her dress seemingly bunched at her waist, Tim’s palm slaps against her leg, trailing slowly down her heated skin into the abyss of red, flimsy fabric. His fingers tap a slow rhythm on the inside of her thigh, the small thumps on her leg turn into skimming and he traces the outline of her underwear, the heel of his palm faintly cupping her. As if burned, he rests his palm on her stomach, dangerously low, filling her with heat as his thumb moves to design shapes into her skin.

Julie’s hands slide between them, chasing after the hard muscles of his chest. He arches up, her nails tracing the contours as they glide down towards the waistband of his boxers. He moves his palm from underneath her dress to grab her hand, bringing it back up towards his shoulder. Planting her hand somewhere near his heart, his hands follow the curve of her arms and cup her shoulders.

Tim’s hands are on her back, sliding along the edge of her bra, before settling on the clasp. A snap moves his hands to her shoulders, fingering down one strap and placing an open-mouthed hot, wet kiss on her shoulder before repeating it on the other. He kisses her on the lips, his hands cupping her face, and he presses harder into her, mouth hot on hers and his hips pressing her dress against her, making her feel itchy from the movements of the fabric.

Her hands move to her dress, fingers trying to catch a part of it so she can try to push it down her legs, planning to kick them off. Tim’s lips leave hers, trailing a path from the corner of her lip over her jaw, sucking at her neck, and tongue licking her collarbone. His hands settle on either side of her, guiding him down as he descends, kissing the valley between her breasts and trailing a wonky line down her stomach. Fingers tickling her sides, he grips the dress, pulling it down her legs, his lips pressing at the waistband of her underwear – skimpy black boy shorts – as the dress settles around her feet. His hands abandon it, allowing her to use her feet to pull it off. He smirks against her skin as it seems to tangle slightly, her toes having to pick at it like chopsticks.

Kissing his way back up to her, hot and open-mouthed that occasionally leave a _popping_ sound as he moves on to the next patch of skin. He diverts from his original path and kisses the side of her breast, forming a slight trail around it as his finger skims a straight line between them.

Julie has enough, sighing, frustration courses through her as she digs her hands down his back, trying to burn paths in his skin without the use of her nails. She tries to will him up, to feel his mouth hot on hers and his chest pressing her into the mattress. His legs tangle with hers, looping around her knee and he uses it to pull himself up towards her, tugging slightly, as he diverts to her collarbone. Tim stays at her shoulder, the pressure of a grin being resisted burns into her skin. His teeth bite and his lips suck and she shifts her hips, feeling him through his boxers, and he shuffles back, pressing hard against her momentarily before air seeps between their lower bodies.

She groans, rolling her eyes as she tugs at his hair, trying to get him to come up to her. She arches against him, feeling his smirk increase and weigh her shoulder heavily down. Jerking it, Tim laughs, hot air puffing across her skin. 

“Okay, okay,” he says, still chuckling, and he moves so slowly, as though he’s swimming through the air, to press a kiss at the corner of her lip. Flicking his tongue out, he slides his mouth over hers, licking the pillow of her lower lip as he shifts his hips down. “Ever heard of patience is a virtue?”

She pulls at his hair, hands gripping at his cheeks as she moves her hips against his, wrapping her legs around his middle and trying to get him closer to her. His chest is hard against hers, knocking the breath out of her, “Ever heard that you’re a tease?”

He chuckles against her lips, biting at her bottom one, his fingers tapping wide patterns down her side to rest at her hip. She thinks he’s going to go for it again, try to overcome some hidden dragon as he acts as though her thin underwear is a metal chastity belt.

He does. She thinks she’s momentarily stupid for thinking anything could faze Riggins.

He pulls her underwear down, fingers sliding down the sides of her legs, dragging them over her knees and she hates the way he kisses _all_ of her; the skin on her knees, the sides of her legs. She kicks the underwear from her feet in irritation that Tim Riggins is attentive to detail at the worst of times and he swims back up towards her, stupid smirk on his face, lips trailing up her leg.

She lets her head flop back onto the covers, feeling him slowly make his way up to her to pause at her hip, and then she feels him _there_ nose grazing before his mouth seems to cover her, licking and hot and she grips the sheets in her hands.

She feels – she doesn’t know how she feels, words slipping away for the first time she can remember – him _down there_ , seeming to work at her, pushing buttons she didn’t know existed. She groans, his fingers brush across her hips in replacement of the smirk she usually feels. He’s good, like real good, and she’s a fool for thinking he’d be coming in this as some sort of virgin. He’s not a high school boy – which she doubts he ever was – as she bends her knees and his hands are on her thighs, warm and giving her squeezes she guesses are of reassurance; it’s not like with Matt, who’d slip his hand beneath her skirt she’d wear just for this after a few stutters of _are you sure?_ and flushing cheeks with shaking fingers that’d hesitate and pull away and she’d never felt as frustrated in her life.

The comparisons come with the intensity of the numbness she finds flooding her hands, letting go of the sheets to clench into fists. With Matt, she’d have to do it herself, sometimes, guide his fingers everywhere because he’d be too shy to touch her in ways she didn’t even touch herself, and then she’d try to repay him, slide her hands into his own pants and that didn’t get far either. With Tim, she doesn’t know, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t hesitate and stutter with his fingers, would let her return the favour with vigorous enthusiasm.

Tim’s hands slip underneath her thighs, seeming to pull her up a little and she thrashes at this, as sensations she’s never felt suffocate her thickly as his tongue seems to wrap around her, push further into her, she doesn’t know, but she feels him even more, like he’s telling her to get her head back to him. 

He’s giving her a hint and she’d be a damned hypocrite to act oblivious to it.

Arching her back, she groans louder, feeling her body turn into water as Tim’s licking his way up her abdomen, a stupid, smug grin on his face as his hands move his boxers down. Its slick between her legs, and when he gets a hand free, he seems to stroke her lightly, teasing, before all she can feel is air and the press of his mouth against random spots over her body. 

Tim’s kissing her at an awkward angle as she has to support her weight with her elbows while his hands are working on a wrapper she hears crinkle loudly between his fingers. He’s trying to be quiet, as if not to scare her; she pulls his mouth harder against hers, tongue running over the seam of his lips as she feels the slight lick of air push between them. He presses his mouth firmly down on hers as her elbows give way, attempting to push herself up near the pillow before she lands on it and his hands lightly cup her breasts before moving into her hair. 

Always in her hair, she grins lightly, fingers tugging at clumps of it as if to tell her that smirk belongs on his mouth, and in a way, it is fitting against his. She presses her chest into his, trying to see if his hands will move, run across the underside of her breasts; it stays in her hair, wrapping more tightly if possible.

He slides into her like it’s nothing. Her nails dig into his shoulders as he rocks his hips gently into her. “Fuck,” she groans, and he grins against her mouth, “stop being gentle. Not fucking porcelain.”

He takes her lip between his teeth, “I like it when you talk dirty, Taylor.” He melds his mouth against hers, hot and wet and he picks up the pace, rocking his hips a little faster into her. 

She presses the pads of her fingers into his scalp, bits of hair sticking to her skin as she runs her hands through his hair. Locking her legs around him, he sinks in deeper, letting out a noise in his throat as he keeps kissing her, harder, hands running along her stomach like whispers. He’s talking to her, talking into her as his mouth stays connected to hers, breathing in air while lips are sticking together; she doesn’t register any of the words he’s saying, but she knows, without a doubt, they’re dirty and she’d blush at the sound of them. His mouth feels dirty against hers in that good way Matt’s never did. 

All she hears resonating through her ears is “Fuck, Jules” and she feels something flutter in her stomach despite everything else, knowing that he’s right there with her – only her – and she thinks that maybe she’s selfish for hoping for it, considering everything she’s speculates about Tim Riggins and a certain girl living somewhere in California.

She grins, feeling his own words taste something thick in her mouth as she pulls away from his, pressing her lips to the tip of his nose, “Already doing that.”

He groans at this, a smug little smirk on his lips as he pushes his mouth onto hers, teeth nipping and clashing and he seems to move faster, hips copying his mouth. The heel of her feet press hard against his back, words slipping between them she can’t even hear as Tim’s breathing is loud in her ears.

She says she sees stars, falls apart, something that means fireworks and slipping away from the controlled manner she’s used to when she comes. It’s so blunt to her, the way his nails try to dig into her skin when he’s almost there, so close that she needs to rock into him to help him along the way. She feels like liquid, wet and like she’ll drip off the bed as she buries her head in his neck, licking the skin there as her hands skim up and down his back, nails biting in the flesh. 

Propping her hands against his shoulders, she tries to get him to sink deeper into her, make her feel like she’s been completed, like some stupid puzzle when she’s found the piece she’s been missing for months. Dirty words she doesn’t care to repeat coherently toss from his mouth as he pants – and she does, too, even though she feels slack and incoherent – her breath muffled with moans and “Come on” as she tries to get him to grin against her mouth at her own innuendo. Her lips form words she’s mimicking from him, and Tim slumps against her, hips motionless and still. It’s the first time she thinks she registers the feeling of him being _there_. She feels so full and hot, and he shifts a little, up and down, and she clenches around him to keep him there.

Pressing open-mouthed kisses to her mouth, he trails over her cheek to settle against her shoulder. She brushes hair from his sticky forehead, and he plants his hands either side of her, pushing himself up. Air brushes against her skin, her lower body feeling heated, and she doesn’t like how the chilled air plays along her flesh. Wrapping her legs tighter around his lower back, her feet feel like ice against the sun of his body; he grins down at her, kissing her nose, not making an attempt to try to extract himself from her cage. He seems to shift, enjoying it there a little, and she closes her eyes, nails biting into him as she tries to catch her breath.

“Stay,” she breathes, feeling like she hasn’t used her voice all her life, like he’s rocked her voice box out of her. 

He grins, pulls out of her with a kiss to her other shoulder, and he moves behind her, chest pressing tightly against her back like he doesn’t want to part from her, be a separate entity. “Alright, Jules,” he says into her neck, lips seeming to suck lazily at her skin.

Julie rolls onto her side, her bangs askew, strands sticking to her lashes and others itching near her hairline. She feels the pillow shift, breath slightly teasing her hair, and he’s right behind her, the two of them compacted without a lick of air between them. 

He presses a kiss to her hair as she shifts, legs wrapping with his. Her hands settle against her stomach, not knowing where else to go, and she feels Tim’s slide from their perch on her spine, one crawling underneath her, over the sides of her stomach to tuck themselves under her palms.

Tim wraps his fingers with hers.

*

Julie wakes up early, encased in sheets wrapped tightly around her she doesn’t think she can move without assistance. Her vision blurry, she blinks a couple of times until it’s sharp, taking in the rumpled sheet and open-mouthed Tim.

She pauses, freaked, breath stuck in her throat and her hand twitches beside her head. His hand is the pressure she feels on her back, his palm curving around the side of her stomach, and her legs are tangled with his.

All she can think is _shit_. _Shit, shit, double shit._

Struggling to find the start of the sheet, she tries to twist herself out by using the maze method. Tim shifts, hand slightly gripping her and his legs pull hers into his. She face-plants into the pillow.

Huffing, she tries to untangle her feet from his, sliding one of her legs out of his hold and feeling her smooth skin catch lightly on the hairs of his toned legs. The other one follows suit. Her legs hang limply off the bed as she tries to pull away from Tim’s palm while finding that if she slides down the bed through the sheets she’ll have a better chance at not disturbing him.

He shifts again and she freaks, pausing, still, looking too guilty for the simple act of whatever it was they did last night. She’s not going to dwell on it. She’s got her plan and she’s watched most of Jennifer Garner’s series to know how to get out of a situation like this. All she’s got to do is ask herself What Would Sydney Do? and she’ll be okay.

Sliding down the bed, she finds herself in a tight fix until she realizes that the edge of the sheet is underneath her stomach and there’s no part of Tim Riggins touching her that would result in Godzilla awakening.

Standing, she runs a hand through her messy hair and her fingers get caught in knots. Opening a draw, she finds a pair of underwear – Hello Kitty stamped on the front – and slides it up her legs, finding a discarded shirt on the floor she thinks is Tim’s and quickly slides it over her arms, finding one of the buttons busted as she tries to cover herself up. She’s desperate, is what she’ll say if she gets caught, by him or Tyra or whoever she’ll tell this to, about why she’s wearing his shirt when there’s an old one of Matt’s in her wardrobe, serving the purpose as a memento because she’s just too darn nostalgic to bother scouring the stores for men’s shirts.

She goes to the kitchen. Feet padding softly down the stairs, she closes her eyes with each descend, trying to forget everything. Hands and teeth and lips and goddamn Tim Riggins; nothing is ever a good combination with that boy.

She pulls out the stool, it scraping against the wood and she’ll need to learn a method for avoiding that. She pauses, listening for any noise to indicate that Godzilla has, indeed, awoken and is ready to quip New York with it’s giant feet and giant hands of destruction.

There’s nothing. Julie feels she hasn’t breathed for a decade.

Sitting, she fiddles with her hands, tapping violently against the silver table. Her hands don’t still as she wills them to shut up, pressing her palms forcefully against the coldness and her fingers twitch. Her knee moves, starts shaking up and down as though suffering from shivers, and she has enough, pushing the stool away with a loud scrape and she moves towards the couch.

All thought stops here as she sits down, arms crossed against her chest and she _does not_ think of Tim Riggins – _Godzilla_ ; it stops that heat swirling in the pit of her stomach – on this couch looking very much like he did when she left him. She shifts so she’s lying down, staring at the blank television screen reflecting a blurry image of her back. She looks small, legs bent at the knees so she can fit along the leather. Tim’s blankets are folded and sitting on the floor beneath her.

Sighing, she closes her eyes, suddenly being bombarded with a wave of sleepiness. Julie feels like she’s been awake for all her life, an insomniac throughout her years, and finally she’s gotten around the obstacle as she stifles a yawn by being stubborn, that Taylor family trait she carries proudly, with tight closed lips. She figures she might as well start practicing now; there’s no way in hell she can tell Tyra about this. Or Lois.

She closes her eyes and feels that blanket again, crashing into her like a large wave and knock her under the water. This morning she’s just too lazy to bother swimming to the surface.

With her hand slapping to her forehead, she wakes up, slowly and torturously as she looks around her living room. Feeling disorientated, she stretches along the leather, it quietly moaning against her movements as it unsticks to her sweaty skin. Pitching forward, the blankets folded in a neat square have disappeared and this is when her sense of feeling kicks in.

“Mornin’,” she hears him grin, her hearing is next as she hears him pad around barefoot in the kitchen, pans clanging louder now, as though he doesn’t need to make an effort to be quiet anymore, against the stove and sink and each other. “You sleep like the dead.”

She runs her hand over her face, sitting up and seeing his bare back. “I’ve been told.” Her wit comes later.

“So I was thinkin’ we watch that Shaun movie,” he turns around, spatula in hand, it shines with a glossy tint in the light he has flicked on in the kitchen. Wasting her electricity again, she grimaces slightly, “With the zombies.”

She narrows her eyes, “What are you doing?”

“Cooking,” he grins, turning back to the stove and the frying pan. She hears thing sizzle and she groans, falling back against the couch, head resting on the arm. He’s being difficult – or maybe this is Tim during The After. She wouldn’t know, and Tyra’s never been one to kiss and tell _all_ the details to. The girl was born to be an editor.

“But _what_ are you doing?” she says, palm covering her eyes as she sighs. She’s trying to paint something underneath her words that he’s just meant to pick up. Sort of like how the couples on television and books seem to.

“Whatcha mean?” his voice floats to her. Tim’s really good at proving her fantasies of what true relationships consist of wrong.

She moves her palm away, letting it fall beside her, hanging limply like she’s seen his do the two times she’s seen him sleep. “It’s too early to talk about it,” she says to herself, shifting so she’s sitting up. Her hair feels matted and heavy, and she runs a hand through it, finding it blocked by knots. Another frown, she moves, stands up and his shirt seems to have shrunken overnight, barely covering her thighs.

This is when he turns around, smug grin on his face as he takes her in, two plates covered in whatever the hell he’s been wasting his time on shaking slightly between his fingers. It’s impossible to hold anything still. 

As she moves towards him, she keeps her head down, matted hair protecting her from anything he’s going to do or say or even think as she pulls the stool out with a loud scrape, not bothering to flinch as the sound irritates her ears, and she sits. He grins, breathes out loudly, as if to get a rise out of her, make her turn her head and regard his presence, “Hope you like omelettes.”

He slides the plate in front of her, dropping a knife and fork down beside it. She sees him sit from the corner of her eye, hand pick up the fork and pull at the plain omelette. He pokes at it like he once did to a dead frog in one of the branches of Science. She thinks he’s delusional, thinking scrambled eggs are the alter ego of an omelette. “Thanks,” she mumbles, picking up her fork between the tips of her fingers as though she’ll get burned, and she pokes at it.

“You look good in my shirt,” his eyes dart to her, settling on her face as she brushes her hair away with a skim of her spare hand. She flushes, like back in high school, the way she used to when Matt simply sputtered out a ‘Hello’. She feels hot underneath his gaze, the way his words wrap around her and make her feel like she’s wearing a blanket of comfort. She pulls at the sleeves, the tips of her fingers playing momentarily with them before pushing them up her arms so they’ll sit at her elbows.

Picking up the knife, she decides to not respond to the comment, finding her mouth sticky and hot, knowing words will be trapped in the cavern like a fly wrapped in a spider’s web. She cuts at the omelette; a small odd shape is stabbed by the prongs of her fork. She takes a bite after she scrutinises it; there’s paranoia that he may have laced it with something. “Tastes good.”

He grins, watches her take a bigger cut. “Your dad may make the best chilli, but I make the best omelettes.”

“Or mess with eggs.”

He shrugs, “Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe.”

*

Tim’s persistent.

She tries to keep her distance, making an effort to walk around him, miles between them, like New York and Dillon where Tim’s supposed to be, but he’ll push up in her space, act as though he really needs to get something out of the cupboard directly above her as she washes a dish or grabs a glass of water. Front pressed to her back, his fingers would be the only shy thing on him, pressing like a ghost against her shoulders as he lifts his arms up to open the door, saying “Watch your head” like she’s Tyra’s height, and shuffling things around, looking for something that’ll be believable for him being up in her space.

His fingers brush her when he walks by, like it’s the only way he’s stopping himself from sidling up next to her and acting like a cat. When she’s on the couch, he’ll place his feet on her lap, shift in that way that she has to grab his feet and move them to her knees. He’ll smirk, like he usually does, and his ankle will feel cold in her palm; that desire to warm them up suffocates her every time he does this.

She’s pretty sure the next step for him will be moving onto her leg, much like in the fashion of Ferret.

Though, he’s different at night, and this sort of unsettles her. Sometimes she thinks he’ll follow her up the stairs, play them as if they’re no longer Kryptonite and Clark Kent, and he’ll follow her up, maul her, and it’ll be seven o’clock before she’s awake from the non-stop humming between her legs he’ll only amplify than cease. He doesn’t follow, just lays on the couch, flops down in the fashion of a dead fish, and he’ll say “Night Jules” while watching the music channel or Nickelodeon.

Tim Riggins surprises her too much, and she’s not sure if she doesn’t like it.

*

Three days of being cornered near the sink, feet curled up on her lap, and fingers brushing through her hair whenever she sits down in front of the couch, Tim Riggins surprises her.

With him lying on the couch as though it was his throne and her in her corner, she spies a glance, sees him invested in Spongebob and his adventures under the sea. There’s an itch she can’t scratch and she’s pretty sure Tim’s going to be the only one to cease the irritating fire.

Sucking in her lips, she tries to suck in the courage like a tornado does to everything around it. Wrapping it around her with such a force, she pushes herself up on the couch, shifting her legs underneath her so she’s on her knees, and she crawls up to him, sees his eyes flicker glances at her until he’s just full-on watching her. 

Placing her hands on his cheeks, she feels the warmth of the skin burn at her chilled hands, and she curls her fingers, pulling him to her mouth. He opens underneath her, hands on her waist, pushing under her shirt and just moving in circles there, fingers getting caught up in the fabric.

He doesn’t ask her what changed her mind, and she’s glad, because she doesn’t have an answer, just likes the feel of him against her – and in her – and those stupid butterflies in her stomach that stutter around like words that echo in her head intensify each time she’s close to him.

Justifying what this is is too hard for her, and she presses herself closer to him, pushing him down on the couch as she’s on top of him, legs tangled in a sloppy way as Tim’s hands are in her hair as if they belong. 

Julie pulls away, licks her lips, and rests her head underneath his chin. “You made me miss my favourite part.”

His fingers play in her hair, pads pressing against her scalp, and he presses a kiss to her palm. “Hmm,” he presses his lips together, keeping her hand in his, resting it on his chest, against her side, as he shifts slightly, and turning to face the television. “Huh,” he says with amusement, this playful tone in his voice she hasn’t really heard before, “this is mine.”

She rolls her eyes.

*

Spice Girls becomes some sort of band for them. 

She thinks it’d be a song, like something from a screamo band or Justin Timberlake, but it’s a _band_. What she wants is a song just for them, that when it plays, he’ll think of her or smirk or grab her around the waist; it’s a band that he does this to, and he says it’s because he gets to touch her more. He thinks it’s strategic – like a football move or something – by claiming a whole album of songs as _theirs_ presents a lot more opportunities than being boxed in with one song ever will. 

Tim sort of likes playing with her stereo, buried up somewhere in her room, before he starts interrupting her allocated ‘Julie Time’ with her television. She still doesn’t understand how _he’s_ the one setting down the law in _her_ apartment.

In her room, Tim digs through the box underneath her bed – despite her protests – to find her three albums from the band and the video. He ignores the video, for now, with a smirk on his face, and pulls the albums out, laying them on his lap as he examines each one, the front cover and the back under his scrutiny. 

She sits on the bed, resists the temptation to bite her nails, as his grin stays, widening slightly, as he looks at another album. He’s sitting on the floor, arms absently brushing against the side of her covers as he’s so close to the monsters that creep underneath. Julie the Teenager wants to warn him to watch out for the slimy hands that live under there.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” she moves to rest on her stomach, watching him near the side of her bed. “What you’re looking for? You’re sort of new at this.”

He chuckles, “I Googled it.”

“Googled what?” she shifts, rests her cheek on her palm as her elbow sinks into her bedcovers. Tim’s picking up the second album released again and humming the tune choppily under his breath. 

He’s growing frustrated when he pauses his humming. Julie was silently singing along to the out-of-tune version.

Letting out a breath, the CDs clang together as he picks up the first album of the band, the case falling apart at the side, and he tries to fix it absently, pushing the corner into the hook that’s chipped in a way that aggravates her every time she opens the case. She wants to tell him he won’t win, but he’s stubborn and sometimes stupid because of it, so she keeps her mouth shut. “The lyrics,” he says with a frustrated sigh, dropping the case, leaving it open as though it were a book. He glares at it for a moment before moving onto the thin case of a single.

She laughs, “How did you even know that was possible?” Resting her arms along the bedcover, she rests her chin on them. She can’t quite get herself in a comfortable position, shifting as her chin digs oddly into the soft parts hiding the sharpness of bone.

Tim shrugs, “I called Williams while you were in the shower.” 

She lifts her head, bends her elbow against the covers, and rests her cheek sloppily in her heated palm. “You’ll be paying for that phone call.” He looks up at her, eyebrow raised, and she laughs, pulling her arm away as she lets her face drop into her bed covers. “Not like that!”

He grins, the CDs making noise against one another. “Like you’d have it any other way.”

She rolls her eyes. 

Picking up the opened CD case again and flipping it to see the back, he sighs again, and tries to hum the part he remembers. She grins against the covers, voice muffled as she asks, “Do you remember the name?”

He shakes his head, “Was looking up other things while I was at it.”

She doesn’t want to know what. 

Clearing her throat, she props her chin on the bed, feeling herself sink into it like quicksand. “I can help, you know. It’ll be easier.”

After a moment, he shakes his head, placing the case down and grabbing the single that has a picture of four women rather than five, “Nah.”

“Okay,” she shuffles on the bed, bending her knees and shooting her feet in the air. She starts moving them, cracking the bones slightly as she rests her chin on the back of her clasped hands. “Just know I’m here.”

He nods.

He lines the cases up, not in chronological order of their releases, and tucks his hands inside her cardboard box, digging for the video that belongs to the collection. “It’s on there,” she decides to say, her lips lifting at the corners, “but the back won’t list the songs.”

Tim sighs out a “Damn.”

“I’d try number two,” she shrugs when he glances at her from the corner of his eyes. “Just a hunch.”

He sighs, picking the case in the middle and flicking it over. “You know, you should just tell me which one it is,” she grins at this, Tim Riggins admitting defeat because he doesn’t know anything about the Spice Girls. “We’ll be here all day by the way I’m goin’.”

She grins, “Giving up?”

Shaking his head, “Hell no.” He picks up the CD she hinted at, “I just don’t know the Spice Girls yet.”

She laughs.

Julie flicks her hand out, gesturing for the case. He hands it to her, eyebrows raised, eyes wide in that boyish way of his, “But I’m gonna.” The way he says it sounds like a promise, and it warms something that she thinks has been chilled for a while in her stomach.

She slides off the bed, feeling the slightest bit disoriented as she moves the stereo sitting in the corner of the room to the window sill, the cord still plugged into the socket. She doesn’t remember ever plugging it in, only having it wrapped around the body of the black device as dance took up too much time and whenever she had a spare moment she spent it resting. Pressing a button, the lid pushes itself open and she slides the CD in. Skipping over a couple of tracks, the night in Fred’s apartment comes rushing back to her as she slinks back to the bed, falling on her stomach and pulling herself to the edge where Tim’s sitting, putting the CDs back in the box. “This the one?” she smiles.

“Yeah,” he nods, “somethin’ like that.”

Julie smiles, as Tim creeps forward, cups her face in his hands, and presses his lips to hers. His hands are warm on her face, mouth pressed tightly on hers, and fingers in her hair, tangling it by wrapping strands around his fingers and pulling them out from the tight cage once he’s satisfied. One day she’s going to hit him _real hard_ with her hair brush.

He moves forward, pulling her up onto her knees as he slides onto the bed, pushing her on her back slowly as he kisses her lazy, like they have forever to just do this. That thought sends tingles up her spine, intensifies them where they float underneath his palms on her skin. His hand settles on her thigh when she bends her legs at the knees, spreading them in preparation to wrap around his back (she’s one step ahead, for once); he pushes against her pant leg, and her legs settle down, feet skimming across the rough skin of his ankle.

So, finally, she thinks, as his mouth opens under hers and her fingers grip his shirt, palms encasing his shoulders, that they’ve moved from _album_ to _song_.

It’s progress.

*

Martha’s Knock (it’s like a country now; so well known and drawn on a map) erupts at her door. She thinks it’s like termites, gnawing away at the wood, and she grumbles, pulls herself from Tim’s grip. “Let it go,” he whines, head dropping back against the couch as he watches her fiddle with smoothing out her dress.

She should start using her peep hole.

Opening the door reveals Taylor, clipboard in hand and his grey cardigan. It reminds her of rain in Texas, the day the tornado hit the store. She breathes in loudly, stepping into the space the doorframe creates, and trying to will herself to expand like Augustus Gloop so Taylor’s prying eyes can’t see Tim.

People can’t sleep over, he says. Julie always has to bite back the _yes, dad._

“Julie,” he nods, voice haughty and he looks up at her, although she thinks it’s meant to be down. She sort of beats him in the height department.

“Mm?” she blinks, presses her palm onto the doorframe and tries to lean casually against it. She stops herself from crossing her legs at her ankles. “Is there a problem?” There always is. Taylor doesn’t believe in social calls unless it involves a poll.

His fingers tap the clipboard like a pen, making a noise she’s only familiar with when wearing heels on her floor. “I’ve been informed that you have a miscreant in your apartment.”

She stares at him. Taylor tries to stare her down with wide eyes. Shaking her head, she sighs, “No ...” swallowing, she remembers her mother and the manners she embedded into her, “sir.” She looks to the carpet, hears shuffling in the background and tries to cover it up, speaking loudly, “It’s just me. As always.”

Taylor _hmphs_. “Very well.” His fingers stop tapping on the clipboard, “If I get another complaint –”

Resisting rolling her eyes is an effort for once. “You won’t. It’s just me.” 

When he walks away, Julie shoots a look at Martha’s door.

*

Julie doesn’t tell Tim she’s more than a face to Lyla Garrity.

She calls her every second Wednesday, deep into the night. Lyla likes the shadows, wraps them around her as her voice hushes and she’s sadder, sighs more, and gets tired five minutes earlier than the last time. Sometimes Julie wants to fix her; most of the time, she listens to her mother’s voice that says _let it be._

Lyla’s sinking in increments and Julie doesn’t want to plunge her any deeper, to let go of their frozen hands because she owes her more than letting her go over a boy. She learnt from the mistakes of fictional characters in a television show than her own life, and this, she knows, is a tentative friendship that could be more. _Hoes before bros._ Greed has always been one of her biggest downfalls.

So when Lyla calls and says, voice resigned, “How’s Tim?” Julie thinks the world is about to combust into flames. _Swede_ flitters through her mind like it applies, because somehow it sort of does, except it really doesn’t. Swede wasn’t her friend’s boy. He was just a boy. 

At Julie’s pause, Lyla chuckles; she hears a smile stretch in her voice and she tries nonchalance, never being one who can pull it off, sounding more drained than before. “Its okay, Julie. I’m not mad.”

The pitch in her voice contradicts that.

*

So, she _really_ likes the couch. 

“You know,” he says against her mouth, words hot against her lips as he grins, pecking her with open-mouthed kisses, “your landlord is a bit …” He distracts himself from offending her, as if she’ll be insulted by any names that come out of Tim’s mouth about her Taylor and his clipboard, by kissing the corner of her mouth, flicking his tongue out as he waits for her to state her position on the matter.

“A creep?” she says breathless, twisting so her mouth settles under his and he chuckles against her lips. Placing her hands on his cheeks, she presses his mouth firmly to hers, opening underneath him as she shifts on his lap.

He shrugs, “He was looking at me funny. Asked if I was like a plumber or something.”

She laughs, pulling away from his mouth as his hands grip her shoulders, squeezing her there as she shifts again. He groans, and she presses her forehead to his shoulder, body shaking as Tim doesn’t pick up on the most obvious hints unless it’s spelled out for him. “I told him you were a plumber. Well,” she lifts her head, “Martha did.”

His eyebrows furrow, “Why?”

She shrugs, “Taylor has this thing where he doesn’t like his tenants having live-ins with them.”

“Strange.”

Tim bends his head to kiss the shell of her ear. Lifting her own, she presses her nose to his, “You have no idea.”

“So,” he pulls her back for a kiss, his words tickling her as he talks against her mouth, “when can I be the pool boy?”

Instead of punching his shoulder, she shuffles on his lap, angling her hips and Tim pulls away, lets out a slow groan as his head slaps against the back of the couch while his hands curl around her waist tightly.

*

Martha invites her over. Really, she invites _Tim_ over. She’s pulling a Tyra, wanting to check out her latest friend (she’s not sure what to call him, so she just says it so casually, like, _no we’re not really having sex_ , but secretly hinting that they are. She’s confusing herself by listening to Lois’ antics). Martha acts like she has the seal of approval on their (this is where Julie pauses) friendly _benefits_.

Julie’s timid in bringing Tim over, and his hand grips hers lazily, sticking close to her side as Martha fetches salad from the fridge. “Made it this morning,” she grins, peeking from out of the fridge to look at their hands, “make yourself at home.”

She clears her throat, pulling Tim along with her to sit on the couch. Ferret is not in her line of vision and she hopes that it’s buried somewhere deep, dark and scary, with really large, hungry Hannibal Lector cockroaches. “I’ve got to ask you something,” she finds herself saying, confidence spilling into her, rushing through her from her palm gripped in Tim’s. She thinks it’s Tim rubbing off on her, the way shit just spills from his mouth without a filter.

“Yeah?” Martha’s voice seems muffled, like it’s being blocked by a barricade. She’s moving back and forth from the fridge, bringing transparent bowls from a shelf to her countertop. “Shoot.”

Licking her lips, Julie glances at Tim’s hand and sneaks a peek at his face. Like when they’re outside, he’s drinking in the apartment. It’s cleaner than before, with canvases hidden in corners and rags streaked with different colours tossed over furniture like they belong there. She doesn’t really think anything is out of place – except the apartment smells like air freshener or girly deodorant _used_ as an air freshener. “Did you tell Taylor about …” not knowing how to phrase it, she clears her throat, finding it piling up the small barricade she feels every time she talks too much.

“No,” Martha says from the counter, pulling out a draw noisily as utensils clang together as she gathers them between her fingers. “Taylor figured that one out on this own.” She carries the three bowls, two between her fingers and the third on her arm. It reminds her of Tyra, in purple, set in Applebees with a grimace etched on her face. Handing the two bowls gripped between her fingers to them, she plants herself opposite them on the other couch. “Besides, you’re keeping my secret, so it’d be a shame if I didn’t keep yours.”

Julie rolls her eyes, “This is ridiculous.”

“But it’s a nice apartment,” Martha grins, stabbing a tomato with her fork. 

Julie lets go of Tim’s hand, cradling the bowl on her lap, “Where is the secret, anyway?”

Martha swallows before glancing over the couch, “I locked him in the bathroom.” She grins in that way that makes Julie feel thankful and indebt at the same time for this small favour she was secretly hoping for. 

“What is it?” Tim says around lettuce, and Julie thinks that Martha’s a mind reader – or she has a key to her apartment – because this is all Tim seems to be eating lately; lettuce and tomatoes and the occasional apple. Julie’s going to force feed him McDonald’s tonight, even if it kills her. 

Martha opens her mouth. Julie glares, her fork making a noise as she lets it slap against the side of the bowl shaped as a strawberry, “An evil, demonic little thing.”

Martha grins, “My dog.”

“Ferret.”

A light bulb lights up as Tim nods, a grin forming on his face as he chews at whatever he’s put into his mouth. “So _that’s_ what you’re so afraid of.”

“I’m not scared of the devil’s dog!”

He’s nodding, “Julie Taylor’s scared of a dog.”

“There’s a reason,” Martha supplies, smiling. In Julie’s eyes, she’s wearing a cape with her underwear on the outside of her track pants. “Chester –”

“Ferret,” she doesn’t want a name put to the creature. Her heart can’t take being mean to things with names that remind her of a bunny she once owned.

Martha just grins, “He’s my dog.”

“He’s an abomination.”

“He’s taken a liking to Julie’s leg.” In an instant, the cape it gone, replaced with initials of the alliteration kind and a bald head. 

Tim snorts with laughter. “So that’s why the pants in this kind of heat,” his fingers pick at her own track pants, grey and loose, and she slaps his hand away.

“I don’t dress Rally Girl, sorry.”

He presses his lips together, fork picking up a tomato and lettuce, and occupies his mouth as a retort she feels burning her skin lodges in his throat. Martha’s brow is cocked, amused expression on her face. “Don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t gonna. I know my place.”

Julie cocks an eyebrow, stabbing a piece of tomato straight through, the prongs of her fork clatter with the bowl. “A little too late,” she says around a mouthful.

Martha stands up, bowl on the table between them, and she brushes her hands on her pants, “Drink?”

“Yes please,” Julie moans, and Tim chuckles beside her.

Martha works at the tap, filling up three glasses, leaving one behind as she carries two out for them. Julie glares, wishing for something a little golden or with fizz to hide her from the scrapbook Martha’s going to open and share with Tim like her mother threatens with Matt and her baby photos. 

Martha’s mind reading skills need work.

*

If Tim’s life depended on him walking up the stairs quietly, Julie doesn’t think he’d be around to grace her with his presence.

She pulls the sheets over her head and tries to curl into them as he starts talking, “Mornin’ Bubbles.” She groans into the pillow, instantly regretting last night’s marathon of _Powerpuff Girls_. She’s never reliving her childhood with Tim Riggins present ever again. He’s already identified himself with Buttercup. She doesn’t know how she feels about this. “Time to get up. We gotta go to your favourite place.”

“Piss off,” she sighs, waking up has never been one of her most eloquent moments, and Tim grins, crawling onto the bed and hovering over her. His hands pull away the sheets her fingers tightly grip onto, and he tugs. It doesn’t require any effort on his end. He’s so close, the ends of his hair tickle her face and she wiggles her nose lamely in an attempt to push them away, “Too shiny.”

“Your shampoo helps,” he grins, nestling his face into her neck as he drops on top of her. “C’mon, Taylor, the subway is waiting.”

“It smells,” she tries to shuffle, her fingers clutch at the pillow and she tries to sink into it. She’s waiting for the moment they watch _Titanic_ and he forbids her to sink into her bath for fear she’ll do a Michelle Pfeiffer in _What Lies Beneath_. Granted he’s meant to be Harrison Ford and he tries to _kill_ Michelle. (She leaves that part out until he finds the DVD buried underneath one of the couch pillows.) She’s unsure how ice and a wooden door will fit into the equation. Tim likes putting different movies together and creating his own scenarios and references.

He leaves open-mouthed kisses along her neck, trailing over her jaw and to the tip of her nose. “Not everything can smell as good as you.” 

She rolls her eyes, “Lines aren’t going to get me out of bed.”

His fingers brush her bangs off her forehead so he can kiss the creased skin as she tries to push him away with her sheer will. “I thought a promise to that hot dog stand you like so much and that bookstore would do the trick.”

Julie snuggles into her pillow, “Maybe.”

Tim grins, “C’mon,” he shifts his hips and she frowns, “you know if we stay I’m not gonna to let you sleep.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’ll be more tired if you don’t get up.” Without opening her eyes she knows his eyebrows are moving up and down in that childish way of his, that stupid grin on his face that she hates so much there, accompanying it, making fun of her as his hands pull and twist in her hair. He likes her hair, how long it is, and she thinks about threatening to cut it, just to stir things up so he doesn’t think he’s so smooth and the boss of her. She wrinkles her nose at this.

Sighing, she shifts so she can see the tip of his nose, “You gonna pay?”

He grins, “’Course. Gonna treat my gal right,” the way he smiles over it, the _my gal_ , she can’t help the tug of her lips and the light flush blossoming on her cheeks. It’s all clichéd how her heart flutters and she feels a warmth stream through her veins. Her apartment has morphed into a romance novel. She curls more into the blankets, finding him relax more comfortably on top of her. 

He stays there for a minute, fingers in her hair and a smile so calm on his face it makes her tired, feel comfortable to just relax and tumble back into whatever abyss she crawed out of. He watches her sleepily, eyes hooded, chin resting on her sharp shoulder. She sighs loudly, snuggles into the pillow and closes her eyes. 

Tim slides off her, smacks her upper thigh, aiming for her ass, and he seems to skip down the stairs, “Five minutes, Taylor!” Sometimes you can’t escape football, even when you’re miles out of Texas.

She rolls her eyes and lets her face drop into the pillow.

*

It’s an hour later when she’s outside, in the open, sitting on a park bench with Tim’s thigh pressed against hers and arm resting on the back, fingers dangling to play with the hood of her jumper.

She inhales loudly, watches as her Frisbee theory is proven wrong as the park is loud with the lush green grass and quiet with the whispers of people walking close. “This isn’t my favourite place.”

“It isn’t?” he grins, fingers playing with her hair pulled in a shoddy excuse of a ponytail. She crosses her arms across her chest to stop her hands from slapping him away as he tugs. “Well,” he sighs, arm rests along her back and his palm sits still on her shoulder, “it’s my favourite spot.”

She turns to him, sees his profile, the slope of his nose, as he watches whatever he sees out there in the sparse open of grass and random strangers walking by. “You come out here?” Disbelief layers her voice and she thinks, perhaps, that maybe it was the wrong approach. Tim isn’t a guinea pig she once owned, trapped in a cage and left only with a wheel. 

Julie just doesn’t pay enough attention.

He nods, exhales “Sometimes” like it doesn’t matter, like he’s not preparing himself for slipping out of her grip. Matt did it once, with Carlotta; she let him slip too far for her to ever gain her proper footing with him, even when forgiveness is forged between them and they try to move forward together. One was always one step behind and it always ended up being him.

His mouth pulls up into a sad smile she always sees on his face at rare moments. It’s like when the sun catches the light just right, or the moment she decides to venture out her apartment and find herself in a thinner sea of people. She always presumes that when he’s like that, all broken and lost and that boy she sort of remembers when she was sixteen, that he’s thinking of Lyla, that he’s with her, and maybe, when he showed up at her apartment, he was never hers to begin with. 

She tries to play it off, do what Tim does, so the aching feeling in her stomach and the itchiness of her palms will get the hint and go away. “How come I don’t know this?”

Tim looks at her, grins, “Enigma.”

The gnawing at her stomach only intensifies.

*

Like treasure, she discovers that Tim is one of _those_ guys. He likes walking in the park, hands almost brushing, his head ducked shyly that’s so Matt Saracen she doesn’t know whether to melt or scream.

He kicks something in the grass, eyes on his feet – or hers – as they flicker around everywhere, drinking everything like the last time they were out and about, “Hey, think we can get that movie?”

She draws her eyebrows together, “What movie?”

“The one we danced to.”

“You can’t dance to movies, Tim.” However, she grins, ducking her head as she watches the concrete pass underneath her feet. He’s thinking beside her, surveying the buildings as they walk their familiar route to the hotdog stand she’s taken solace in. Grinning, Julie looks up at him, squinting her eyes, “ _Spice World_?”

He looks at her, sort of angles his body towards her and draws his eyebrows together, “That Spice Girls?”

“Yeah,” she laughs, because he looks so serious, like back when it was all about football and Lyla Garrity and _football_. She slips her arm around his, curling her palm around his bicep, “We’ll see what we can do.”

He grins.

*

Martha decides to invite Julie out. Out into the real world, she says with paint on her face and the dog is so close to Julie’s bare leg she’s more than prepared to kick it. She agrees, only as a deal was negotiated and going out with Martha means she doesn’t have to look after the secret dog that doesn’t exist.

She walks up the stairs to her room, yelling “I’m having a shower, so don’t do something stupid with the kitchen sink” over her shoulder like she’s back in Dillon with her parents. She feels Tim’s smirk from the couch as he changes the channel to a pop starlet grinding against something while singing about sex. 

Once in her room, she gathers the clothing left on the chair by the wall and slides the bathroom door open, closing it behind her just as quickly. Turning the taps on, she peels her clothes off, piling them messily beside the door as the clean ones sit on the sink.

Julie lets out an “eep” as she adjusts to the temperature, twisting the knobs slightly so her skin doesn’t feel so red. Tipping her head back, she feels her whole body start to relax.

The sound of the shower door slams shut and arms wrap around her waist, her back pressed hard into a chest that’s becoming familiar. “I’m not doing this with you,” she pulls at a tangle in her hair before dropping them to sluggishly poke at his arms (her ‘fierce’ attempt at prying) from around her abdomen. The water leaks into her eyes as she’s directly under the spray.

Tim presses his lips to the back of her neck. “You’re wasting water, Little Taylor.” His palms flatten against her stomach, pushing slightly against her; like dominoes, she falls into him, except it’s nothing dramatic like the little blocks, it’s a little step back and she can feel him against her back, the rise and fall of his chest and the movement of his muscles as he fidgets, semi-under the spray. Her hands try to slap his slipping hands that follow the faint dip of her hips away. 

She rolls her eyes, feeling him flick his tongue out at the wet skin on her neck, her hair sticking and getting in his way, “I’m sorry, was I the one who took an hour long shower two days ago?”

He grins, teeth nipping at the skin of her shoulder, “Was a cold one.”

Shutting her eyes, she slaps his arms, “God, Tim.”

“Natural reaction, Julie,” he presses his nose into her neck, “thought you were smart.”

His arms loosen on her waist, hands hovering over her hips as she turns around. They settle immediately when she’s turned fully to him. She rolls her eyes, “Tim, seriously.”

“We need to help out Australia,” he says with a serious face, eyebrows raised with enthusiasm she relates to football, and there’s a twitch at her mouth that begs to show her amusement. His fingers squeeze her hips.

Her eyebrows gather, confusion masking her face and he uses this as leverage to step closer to her, “What?”

“Australia,” he pauses, “the country.” His fingertips push against the skin of her hips as he punctuates his points as if he’s counting them off his fingers, “Land Down Under. Steve Irwin. Kylie Minogue.” Putting the icing on the cake, he makes her feel like an idiot, his eyebrows still in his hairline and his hair clinging to the sides of his face as he leans a little toward her to speak softly and slowly as though she were stupid – or dense, “They have a drought.”

“I know what Australia is,” she slaps his wet shoulder, pulling her hand away before his, which hesitate, can grab her wrist. “Why are you bringing it into my shower?” She resists the urge to place her hands on her hips, jut her knee out at their close proximity; she knows the bastard will use it to his advantage and before she knows it, she’ll be hitting her head against the showerhead.

“Julie, didn’t you listen to me?” He grins, like he’s the smartest son-of-a-bitch on earth. “Australia has a drought and needs water. By having a shower together we’re helping them,” his thumbs etch heated circles into her hips, feeling him press harder to feel the bone. “We’re doing a good deed for the kangaroos.”

“The kangaroos,” she mumbles to herself. “Tim, this is America.”

“And I’m talking about Australia. Gotta help our sister country, Jules.” He ducks his head to her shoulder, his arms wrapping around her waist as he presses his palms to her lower back, pulling her slowly to him until there’s no room left for either of their fronts to breathe. “Besides, greed is a sin.”

She rolls her eyes, tipping her head to the side which elicits a grin against her skin, “You gonna spit out something about punishment?” Her hands slide up his hot side, trying to wedge between their chests; giving up, her hands slide over his back, slowly rising to his shoulders.

“No, but since you’re proposing …” her hands grip his biceps, eyes closed tightly against the spray of oncoming water, and Tim’s pulled her right against him, wedging a knee between her legs.

“We’re gonna make a mess in my shower,” Julie allows a smile, pulling him slowly with her towards the tiles so water stops stinging her eyes.

“It’s a good thing we’re here to clean, then,” he grins, following her until she’s right against the cold tiles. Wedging his knee back between her legs, his mouth is hot on hers as his hands grip her waist, pulling her roughly against him.

“Jesus Christ,” she says, feeling him against her stomach.

“Bringing Lyla into this already, Taylor? Never thought of you like that,” he grins against her mouth, moving to place hot open kisses along her cheeks and jaw. _Smart ass._

She rolls her eyes, “Gutter, Tim. This is a clean room.” He seems to press her harder against the wall as his hands slide up and down her sides and his legs seem to straddle her somehow, boxing her in. “The wall’s cold,” she pouts into his mouth, his teeth nip at her bottom lip.

His hands skim up her sides in an attempt to warm her, pressing his body harder on hers and she feels it only makes the whole situation worse as the tiles burn the heat of her skin into chills. He sighs, makes a dramatic act of rolling his eyes when she opens hers, and he pulls away from her, taking the warmth with him as he fiddles with the showerhead, moving it so it sprays the wall; he blocks path to her. “Better?”

She shrugs, allowing a slow smile to spread across her lips, “We’ll see.”

Tim grins, hands settling on her waist before sliding around her back, making her arch away from the wall. He uses the gap between her back and the tiles to slide his hands over her rear and pick her up, pulling her against him. Her legs wrap around him and her lower back hits the momentarily wet tiles before her skin starts disturbing the water clinging desperately there.

One arm stays wrapped around her while the other tugs at her hair, playing with it as though it were a rope ascending into the ceiling and something attached to it was failing to fall out. He’s been obsessed with _The Addams Family_ lately, so determined to prove her sixth floor neighbour is the butler. She grins, pulling his hair in small retaliation before digging her nails into his shoulders, running them over his broad back and he presses her harder into the tiles. His hand follows her hair, sticking to her body and his, and trails over the swell of her breast, palming her stomach as she arches away from the slight pressure. His hands are cold, matching the sensation of the hard tiles chilling her back.

Julie’s hands glide over his back, nails skimming across his skin as he pulls her harder against him, as though somehow the pressure will make them melt into one another. He tries to shift them, causing her legs to wrap tighter around him, hooking at the ankles as she rests her head against the tiles. His lips pull at the skin on her neck, tugging with his teeth and sucking it. She tries to move, to create some sensation between their slick bodies as the showerhead spurts water against his back. She tries to move, however she feels herself slide, and she stops. Fear pulls at her spine as the prospect of cracking her head open doesn’t seem as friendly as what they’re currently trying to do.

He curses against her skin about how she’s so stupid for buying an apartment with a shower lacking the bathtub in it. She laughs, feels her scalp cooling against the tiles as her skin slides noisily against it. Tim’s face is buried underneath her chin, hot breath skimming over the top of her breasts. “Goddammit, Taylor, so fucking inconvenient.” 

He tries, though, as stubborn as he is, and she grins as his hands are hard against her, determination so obvious in all his movements, the nips of his teeth and the licks of his tongue. He tries to shift her so she can take him in, but she doesn’t budge, the wall melting into her like she wishes it was him. His laughter ghosts as hot air against her ear; he presses his mouth sluggishly against hers, smile spreading and he laughs, tickling her own lips with his slight shifts. This is him claiming defeat.

“This isn’t working,” she laughs against his mouth, and he breathes across her cheek, resting his against hers. “My back’s all cold and weird.”

He grins, “Always got an ace up my sleeve,” he shifts her so he’s carrying her in that bridal style she’s seen in movies, and she worries, momentarily, that he’ll slam her head into the doorframe accidentally. Or on purpose, she never knows with him. He holds her tight against his chest, that ridiculous notion fades slowly from her mind as he pauses, shifting her so she’s underneath the spray, causing her to sputter. Trying to blink against the water as it pelts into her eyes, he takes longer than necessary trying to get a successful grip over the knobs, and turns it off after a laugh.

Shifting her slightly, he pulls the shower door open, her legs rubbing against the cold glass, and moves outside the bathroom to her room, treading water everywhere. 

“My sheets are new!” she shakes her head, gripping at his shoulders as he smirks, stupid shit-eating grin again, and she pulls at his hair to prevent that desired slap.

He shrugs, “Gotta christen everything new,” and he sits on the bed, lying down and she shifts above him in an attempt to cover all of him with her small frame. “Mm, like this view,” he grins, hands running up and down her sides as he uses his arms, his elbows digging into the mattress hidden underneath her linens, to pull himself across the bed, wrinkling her sheets and pulling them with him. 

She straddles his legs, palms making circles on his chest, “And how is this helping Australia?”

He shrugs, lips pressed together, and his hands slip into her hair, pulling her down to him as he kisses her slowly. She feels her hair tangling with his circular motions on her skull, and she’ll yell at him for that later – knots in her hair are a bitch to get out – and she presses her mouth hard against his, hands gripping his shoulders as she shifts her hips over him.

Tim slowly flips them, his palms pressed hard against her back as he shifts, her legs wrap around his waist once he settles down against the sheets. He’s hard against her and he grins on her chest, as though it’ll become a part of her, a hand curving around the swell of her breast before sliding down her stomach, lips following slowly behind.

She frowns, “Tim,” her fingers find his hair, as her back arches at the sensation of his fingers trailing feather light over her skin. She’s always been ticklish like this.

He shushes her against her abdomen, his palms trailing over her legs, fingers stretched out as he tries to envelope most of her skin within his grip. “Gonna make you curse, Jules. Australians curse like sailors.”

Her breath hitches, “They use slang,” she arches, tries to strangle that gasp as he feels his mouth stretch against her skin into another smile. “God, Tim, don’t you know anything?” her hands bunch the sheets, pulling at them as he breathes over her, fingers seeming to push against her leg without thought, spreading her. 

She feels his tongue, hot and wet, on her, and she gasps, her hips pitch up as she closes her eyes, hands gripping the sheets tightly. “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ on a goddamn stick, _Tim_.”

He grins.

*

Lois calls. Julie accidentally picks up the phone.

“Tyra says you’re screwing Tim Riggins.”

Julie pauses, wondering if she should spit back a customary _hello to you, too_ at her tone.

“Oh my god, I hate you.” 

Lois hangs up.

Some things she doesn’t miss.

*

“Do you ever think about school?”

Julie’s brow crinkles and she shifts, presses her face closer to his on her pillow. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs, a lift of his shoulders as his finger keeps twirling football plays (she’s come to the conscious decision that you can’t have Tim Riggins without the football) into the skin of her back. “Like changing things,” he licks his lips, “If you could go back, like McFly.”

She laughs lightly, “ _Back to the Future_?” 

He hums, his eyes settle on his hand, watching his fingers skim over her skin before pressing down slightly. 

She shifts, knowing he’s not going to elaborate. Sometimes, she thinks, she’s lucky enough he initiates conversations between the two of them. He can sit in silence for hours, perfectly still, while she’s jittery and feeling paranoia paint her nerves with a second coat. “Sometimes.” Julie shifts, his fingers pause on her skin, moving slightly with her, “Sometimes I think about how things could’ve been different.”

His eyes dart quickly up to hers, fingers absently drawing circles, and she sighs, opting to look for his arm rather than at him. It’s like giving a speech in class; focus on three points on the wall and make sure you alternate naturally between them. “Yeah?” he breathes out, as if to encourage her to say more; its as though he’s liquoring her up, sort of like Riley, and she clenches the blankets between her fingers the best she can.

Clearing her throat, she lets out a “Yeah” to tell him she’s going to be as tough as a rock and getting the blood out of her will require more effort and tools. She’s not going to make it easier for him.

*

Tim does things with his … she blushes when she thinks about it.

She finds herself comparing him to Matt, but she justifies it by saying “in the experience department” to Tyra, who groans and makes disgusted noises on her end of the phone. “I don’t want to hear a porno, okay? I have the internet and Landry Clarke for that.”

But she does it, and it’s becoming like breathing, a habit that starts when Tim’s touching her or he breathes on her skin or something where he’s on her. He’s all smooth where Matt wasn’t, and even after the years, after Carlotta and the girls and her guys, the reconciliation wasn’t as breathtaking as she’d hope. There were no declarations of being birds together and he didn’t build her a house like the romance novels promised when your loved one was away from you. Matt still treated her like she was sixteen and innocent, inexperienced and as though unicorns and Barbies would suffice to keep her entertained and happy. 

She stops calling Matt, stops emailing him, because that pain that resides inside her heart thumps incredibly fast every time she does this, this stupid comparison she can’t help but breathe out and list the pros and cons. Keeping in contact with Matt makes this thing with Tim harder, and she feels like a cheating spouse sometimes when she reads over his old emails she’s saved in her drafts folder.

So when he’s lying on her bed, his side pressed against the sheets and he’s flicking a magazine he’s stolen from her grip minutes before, she summons up that courage she’s always missing whenever she thinks about this. Matt would make it slither away with a simple stutter, but Tim makes it light up, burn brighter than ever.

Julie slides across the bed, pressing her mouth against his chest. He tenses before relaxing, his hands stilling their restless movements with the magazine pages. Pressing kisses in a wonky line to the waistband of his boxers, Tim shifts, hands stroking her hair absently as she feels his lazy gaze settling on the back of her head. “Jules,” he doesn’t choke out the word like Matt used to, and she hates herself for bringing him back into this, “what are you doing?”

Settling on her side, she settles her hands on his hips, sliding them underneath his boxers, and Tim tenses at this, turns still in her hands as his fingers grip her hair. “What does it look like?” she mumbles against his skin, feeling twitches against her mouth as she slides his boxers down to his knees.

She looks up at him, the bed sheets pushed towards the end, and she clips her toes around his boxes, sliding them down as she pushes herself up, hand settling on his hip like he’s done so many times before on hers. There’s a ghost of a print ablaze on her hip. He seems to swallow, kicking off his boxers as her feet let go of the material. “You don’t have to do this.”

She grins, “Do what?”

He glares, “You know.” Tim acts like she’s sixteen, too innocent to hear about sex and the compartments that make it, and that is what brings Matt back in. He still sees her as the Coach’s daughter, Eric Taylor’s baby girl he’s not allowed to touch unless he wants his life ended. 

Pressing her lips together, she furrows her brows lightly, humming. “Uh, no.” Her hand slides down his hip, and her hand hovers over him. She feels like she needs permission, contradicting her want for surprise. “No, I don’t.”

“Jules …” he says, as though that’s supposed to scare her. He thinks of himself as the big bad wolf about to corrupt Little Red Riding Hood if he lets her do what he does to her. 

“Tim,” she pulls a slow smile, trying to be serious, pushing the teasing away, “you do it for me. It’s only fair I do it for you.”

“Says who?”

She shrugs, feels her cheeks reddening despite the confidence she feels tingling throughout her being, “I want to do it for you.” Licking her lips, she glances at the open magazine, “And, besides,” she doesn’t look at him, feeling stupid for even thinking this, for not filtering it out, “if it doesn’t work for you, you’ve got –” she leans up a little, the glossy pages hiding half the page with a shine, “ – _that_ to get the job done.”

He lays there, propped up on his elbow, eyes blank on hers, and she looks away, at the pink hue of his skin. She feels the nerves awaken throughout her body, and she tries to suppress them, get that confidence back. Julie sits up, presses her knees under her, and now she’s further away from him than she wanted. Her plans keep falling through and she’s so tired of over thinking only to end up here, further away than when she started.

Tim shuffles on the sheets so he’s near her, face a breath’s away from hers. His palm hovers over her cheek, like he’s not sure she’s there, and she wants to allow her eyes to flutter closed, but he’s looking at her in such a way that she feels as though he’s not permitting that. He traces her lips with his thumb, eyes roaming over her face, taking in her features, the freckles aligning the bridge of her nose. “You’re an idiot, Taylor,” he breathes against her mouth, and he doesn’t press forward like she expects him to, like she _dreams_ of him doing. “A damn, pretty idiot.”

She breathes through her nose, finding herself finally moving under his face as his palm cups her cheek, and his hand settles on her thigh. “So,” her mouth feels loose, her eyes on his hand on her thigh, “you don’t want me to do it?”

He exhales loudly, pulls his hand away to rake it through his hair, “You know I’d love it, Jules.”

“Then what’s the problem?” her eyebrows draw in as she looks up at him, and he lifts a finger to press against the harsh crease between them.

“Just don’t want you thinking you _have_ to do it,” he drops his finger, resting his hand back on her thigh. “And I don’t want you doing it while you’re some place else.”

She cocks an eyebrow, “I’m not anywhere else.”

He raises his as a _you’ve got to be kidding me_ that settles like lead in her stomach. Denial is such a good friend to her that she’s allowed it to melt onto her like a second skin. He shrugs, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pulling her down with him as he lands on the magazine, it crunching under his shoulder. “Leave it for another day, Jules.”

She sighs, “I’m not anywhere else,” she says harder, and it’s her convincing herself, because she knows that Tim won’t believe her until she starts practicing what she preaches.

“That little kink in your brow,” he presses a finger to it, sliding it down the side of her face, “says otherwise.”

Julie tucks her head underneath his chin, as he shuffles to move the sheets around them like a tight cocoon. She tells herself she won’t cry.

*

Tim’s hunched over the kitchen table. There’s a tiny book sitting against the surface that has captured his attention.

She places the grocery bags on the floor and takes the other seat, pulling it out from it’s place as it scrapes against her floor. “What are you reading?”

Tim shrugs, eyes glued to the pages and the book seems familiar, paper crinkled and covered in odd patches of stains. “Why didn’t you tell me you talk to Lyla?”

Her eyebrows furrow, “Huh?”

He looks at her blankly, eyes on hers, and it makes her unsettled. The cheeriness in her bones falls away quickly, quivers under his harsh gaze. “You two are friends?”

She shrugs, “Sort of.” Her attention is drawn to her fingers, one slightly tapping against the kitchen as she tries to plot one step ahead of him.

He hums, and her plan falls apart. “So you weren’t going to tell me?” He’s always been one step ahead of her. 

Julie swallows down the stuttering from being a teenager and tries to stand her ground while ducking her head, “I don’t know.”

He licks his lips, “Okay.”

She looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed tightly, and she can’t bite her tongue quick enough, “You speak to Matt. Why is this any different?”

“You know about that.”

“So?” her hands curl around the edge of the table, “You toss his name around and our history like its some small talk conversation.” The joints of her fingers turn white at the pressure she exerts onto them. She’s finding that trying to curl her fingers into the table won’t quench her anger and the temptation to push her fingers into fists and attempt to connect them against his smooth face, “Like it doesn’t hurt every time you say his name.”

He blinks at her, licks his lips, and shuts her phonebook with force. She knew she shouldn’t have left it out; that nagging feeling she’s been feeling since she left for the store finally makes sense now.

“So your Lyla issue is the equivalent to my Matt issue,” she pushes her chair out, it scraping loudly against the floor, “and you’re a damn ass for thinking it’s any different. You know what, Tim,” her voice takes on a tinny edge, tears burning at her eyes, and she tries to not blink so much that they’ll fall, “it’s not. When are you going to realise that?”

The kitchen feels suffocating, and the living room doesn’t slay it in the slightest. So she marches up the staircase, knowing full well that Tim’s allergies to it no longer exist. 

“You should’ve told me,” he says to the table, and she pauses, for a second, on the stairs. The tone of his voice isn’t brutal or hostile; it sounds tired, and Julie wants to pause for a moment, just a tiny moment, and comfort him for it. Tim and Lyla are something recently broken; Matt and her have been torn since they were sixteen.

She looks at him, and finds herself not biting her tongue as what she’s been feeling even before they started their ‘little activities’ comes forth so quickly it’s a tidal wave crashing into her and knocking down all her filters. “You should’ve told me I was a stand in.”

Bashing her feet into the stairs, because she was stupid enough to pass up on Martha’s punching bag being installed somewhere in her apartment, she misses Tim’s gaze and that stupid sigh of his.

*

She wakes up around four from a restless sleep. She’s been lying awake for hours, and listening for sounds of life from the living room.

There’s only been silence.

Shuffling out of bed, she pads down the stairs, pyjama shorts tight around her legs as she slows down, trying to muffle her steps as she approaches the bottom. Sliding across the floor, she tries to pretend she’s not looking at the couch – because she isn’t, she just wants to make sure he has a blanket to keep him covered, despite how warm it is in the apartment – and when she stands on her tiptoes near the kitchen table and can’t see anything over the couch, she only approaches because of that – the blankets. 

The lounge is bare, blankets folded nicely in squares against the arm rest she usually occupies. 

She frowns, hands curling around the back of the lounge, fingers squeezing into the leather. Glancing around the apartment, she surveys every item she can see in this light, and nothing has moved. He’s still here; she breathes out a sigh, and moves to go to the fridge. The light brightens up the panels, the dust collecting at the bottom is intensified and she kicks her toes over it. Looking over her shoulder, the fridge light barely curls around the walls, lighting the little alcove where the spare bedroom is.

Julie hasn’t been counting down the days since Tim arrived – and this is the ugly truth, not her trying to convince herself by telling herself a lie – but she’s been noticing that since he’s been here, even from Day One, the spare bedroom’s door has never been closed. Partly shut, but there’s always a breath of air that sneaks into the living room, light that cascades from the room into the apartment.

This morning, though, with a heavy heart, she slams the fridge shut louder than intended knowing that the door is shut.

*

Tim doesn’t like answering the phone. Or her phone. She thinks that maybe Martha’s gotten to him and warned him about the potential trouble his presence may get her in with Taylor.

She thinks he’s stupid if he believes the phone is bugged. 

However, on other days, she’d think that. Blame his stupidity, his overactive imagination; today, he’s not talking to her, and he’s not acknowledging anything that’ll bring him into contact with her.

She’s had to fetch her own mail.

She runs to the phone, tossing a glare along the way as Tim shuffles further into the couch, as if to say _I’m not moving_ in that stupid Riggins way of his. “Hello?”

“Hello?” it’s a deep voice her brain rattles through dust to try and place a face to. Tim moves, she hears the couch groan, and she keeps her hands wrapped tightly around the phone.

Eyebrow crinkled, she glances at Tim, head bowed as he’s reading instructions that he folds back on crooked creases and slides it into the back pocket of his jeans. She can tell he’s staring hard at the cardboard box he decided to carry back earlier. “Hello?”

“Coach Taylor’s Daughter?” the way it’s spoken is like a name, and her brows pull further towards each other, like magnets and metal, like her and Tim, and the name is on the foreground of her mind, however, vague.

“Uh huh,” she nods, planting herself in her recently vacated kitchen stool. Her fingers pause over the magazine, a habit she’s picked up by talking to Lois a little too much as she talks about Tim’s hair and the softness of his lips and how big – she stops there, the voice slightly registering in her mind. “Who’s this?”

“Billy Riggins. Was told my dumbass brother was there.”

Julie shifts on the stool, her elbow resting on the back as she looks over at the couch. Tim’s connecting some Xbox or Playstation or something to her television so he can teach her the basics to graphically designed football. He was, though, all past tense and her back stiffens at this. When left to his own devices, Tim can be quite a Regina George. (Since two weeks ago, he praises himself on it.) She’s slightly paranoid he’ll connect porn to her television like her mother warned her about. “Did you want to speak with him?”

Billy makes a noise that suggests the negative. “So he finally chased you down.”

“I –” she clears her throat, settling her back against the chair and writing words on the table, the book pushed to the side. “I guess?”

The older Riggins grins, “Well, ain’t that somethin’.”

Julie shuffles on the stool, her feet slipping off it’s little rest and hangs limply, like Tim’s arm, to the floor. “Seriously, I can get him –”

“No, no, don’t,” she thinks she hears screeching in the background, a familiar guttural whine she used to detest. Still does, however she won’t tell her mother that what she thinks is beautiful is, in fact, the ugliest thing she’s ever heard. Shelly says she’ll just throw the _you’re not a mother, you won’t understand_ line at her.

She pauses, elbow slides slightly on the table, “Okay.”

“You just make sure he looks after himself. He’s a world class idiot, Coach Taylor’s Daughter,” Billy seems to breathe here, shift his hand over the receiver before thinking otherwise, “And you’re a smart cookie, as Collette tells me.” 

She breathes, words spurting off in different directions in her mind as she tries to gather a response that isn’t a timid _thanks?_. He hangs up after that.

Julie thinks all Riggins lack manners. Tim keeps fiddling with her television and that paranoia flushes through her body; palming her forehead, she’s preparing herself for Paris Hilton’s sex tape.

*

Martha invites them over without the knowledge of their silence. Julie doesn’t have the strength to sit through all her questions with the expectant cock of her eyebrow, waiting for answers she doesn’t even have. 

Tim sits on the couch, playing the PlayStation or Xbox – she’s not sure which one he’s able to purchase – when Martha pops her head in, smile on her face, and she tells them they’re coming out for dinner. “It smells like dead feet in here,” she laughs, and Julie clings to the door, hiding behind it.

“No thanks, Martha,” Tim throws over the couch, makes an effort to slip her that old grin of his, the one Julie thinks got many hearts racing back in high school. “Rain-check?”

“Anything for you,” Martha grins, though she darts a glance at Julie as if to ask a question she’s not prepared to answer. “You still up for it?”

She licks her lips, glances at Tim as he guides a purple dragon off a cliff, and nods, “Sure.”

“Super,” Martha taps the side of the door, her fingers near Julie’s white knuckled ones, “see you at seven.”

Tim seems to chuckle at this.

*

Julie locks herself in her room. She’s almost convinced herself to give _Harry Potter_ another go when she glances at the clock, realising it’s almost seven, and going out in her Tickle-Me-Elmo pyjama pants wouldn’t be proper attire for whatever Martha’s got wedged up her sleeve.

Moving to her bathroom, some of Tim’s things have been left on her vanity. They’re placed sloppily in places she thinks he guessed where they would belong. He doesn’t have much, just a razor with shaving cream and moisturiser she presumes either her father or Billy issued him with.

His toothbrush is nowhere to be found.

Distracted, she brushes her hair and teeth, and finds a pair of jeans with paint stains fading on the knees to wear with a striped shirt Tim suggested she get. Julie considers going down the stairs and taking up home at the kitchen stool that’s slowly becoming hers – like how the television and couch is Tim’s.

6:55 passes and she’s already into chapter two of The-Boy-Who-Lived.

*

Martha takes her to a bar sans the strippers. It’s an upgrade to what Tyra chooses as their dining venue. They sit at a booth, in a somewhat quiet corner that’s drenched in shadows, and Martha taps her fingers against her glass. She’s painted them fluorescent green since Julie last noticed.

“I don’t mean to pry –”

Julie pulls a small smile, “But you will.”

“It’s in the job description as your neighbour across the hall,” Martha grins, fingers pausing their drumming against the glass as she waits for Julie’s approval to continue. She waves her hand and Martha bows her head, “Trouble in paradise? It was like what I imagined Jan walked into when Marcia and Greg were in the same room.”

“You should really stop watching _The Brady Bunch_. All it ever does is screw up your view on the world.”

“My view of our precious world is fine, thank you,” Martha grins, wrapping her hands around the thin glass. She’s drunk half of her lemonade within the first half hour; Julie’s glad she didn’t order alcohol. “Seriously, though, everything okay?”

She shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t know.”

“Like,” Martha bends forward, pulling her glass towards her, smudging the sweat ring. She crosses her arms and leans forward, elbows shifting in the slight damp, “You don’t know the answer to a math problem or …”

Julie sighs, looks away from her, and her fingers curl around the edge of the table. “I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Martha leans back, hands gripping her glass, and she looks slightly to the side. All it screams is _that’s worse than I thought_.

Julie slides down the sticky booth.

*

Julie regrets not coming home drunk.

She’s stone-cold sober, reeking of obvious dullness as her night wasn’t as exciting as what she presumes Tim’s was. Pressing the door closed quietly, the apartment is coated with darkness. The television flickers light projected from the music channel over the living room and a motionless Tim. She hopes he’s motionless; she pauses, listening for that shuffle of his and that sigh. 

It doesn’t come.

Maybe he’s gotten quieter. Julie wants to laugh at this; all Dillon Panthers are loud.

Placing her handbag on the kitchen counter, she peels her shoes off and leaves them by her stool. Approaching the couch with weariness, she feels this sudden fear in her gut swell and latch onto her insides. She hasn’t been this close to him since their blow-up, and she doesn’t want him to see her, to read the lines lightly taking home on her forehead and to see the smoothness of his skin show her his careless stance on their whole friendship breakdown.

He’s asleep, mouth opened, arm hanging from the couch, and it’s an odd sight. Julie can only remember him in her bed, wrapped in sheets, arm hanging over the edge of the bed or around her waist. The blanket is slipping off him and she latches her fingers lightly onto it, trying to avoid contact with him as Tim’s sometimes a surprisingly light sleeper and the slightest push against his skin awakens the beast. She pulls it up to his chin, finger risking waking Godzilla (nostalgic pangs here) from his hibernation; she traces his jaw to his ear in a whisper of a press.

Pressing a kiss to his cheek, she bids him goodnight. (Goodbyes taste too sour on her tongue.)

*

She doesn’t think he’ll play puppy to her mail, but he does. Julie realises this seconds too late.

Tim leaves two minutes before checking her mail slot registers in her mind. Becoming accustomed to Tim fending her off to snatch bits of envelopes and spam mail from her box has lead to her forgetting about this, the importance of fetching her own mail. Taking her keys, she locks the apartment as she heads to the elevators. The button is sticky underneath her fingertip.

Once she’s at the ground floor and in the mail hallway (Taylor fondly calls it The Post Office), she sees him, large figure moving in a way she thinks suggests laughter. (She’s not sure; he’s been too stiff and robotic for the past week for her to remember how fluid and easy he used to move.) In his grip is the mail, slitted between two fingers, lightly touching the side of his leg. Julie shuffles, keys digging into her palms, and over Tim’s shoulder is the leggy third floor girl she’s never really spoken to, unless “Have you seen my underwear?” counts as a conversation. 

He’s laughing, and the sound wraps around her, stings at her eyes with a chill breeze of daggers, and Julie grasps the idea that Tim Riggins is unhappy.

Shifting on her heel, Julie pads away, shoulders deflated and her mind working hard to build a barricade strong enough to keep Tyra’s voice inside her head from defining why her whole mood has sunken like Titanic (and her heart pangs at this, as written on her calendar in chicken scrawl possessed by something drunk is _Titanic_ with one of those sloppy smiley faces). She presses the elevator button with more vigour than intended.

What she doesn’t understand is why he doesn’t leave.

*

Tim’s persistence she remembers after Fred’s party has abandoned him. He’s sluggish in his movements, pulls his limbs in directions to avoid bumping or simply brushing against hers. She doesn’t feel like she exists when he’s around; she refuses to give a definition to that sinking feeling in her stomach.

Strategies that belong on the football field come into play; he seems to use the simplest ones on her. He waits by the sink, washing it out like they’ve used it for dishes sometime in the morning (which they haven’t; he’s just cleaning a dry space) while she’s at the fridge.

It’s ridiculous, to her, it’s really, stupidly ridiculous. So Tim Riggins she wishes she could laugh.

Julie moves to the sink as he’s at the fridge. They trade places, like the reality show about spouses, and they move in sync with each other that remind her of dance. She misses it, how her legs would ache at first until it became like breathing. Time moves slower now, and she remembers the minor details, like where the sun hits and the best time to tune into the music channel. She also knows Tim’s favourite time of the day, and before, she thinks, she was better off without it.

She’s cleaning the dishes she left there from her early hour morning wake-up. It’s like she’s suddenly programmed to wake up around four and chew on some liquorice she doesn’t remember buying that’s stored in the corner of a cupboard she can’t quite reach. There are other plates there, with a fork and cup thrown in, that she doesn’t remember ever using.

Tim moves, fingers flicking against the cupboards as he’s slowly approaching her, possibly running through the contents of each box through his mind before he pauses right beside her. Pulling open the door right above her head, he leans up – the first time she’s seen him use the tips of his toes – and tries to grab a round bowl her mother bought her in Dallas. A light brown with lines that remind her of the lifelines on trees, pretty, simple flowers are carved into it, the petals a darker brown that reminds her of chocolate as the stems are painted a sloppy, fading green. 

It’s lodged in the corner, the very far one at the back of the cupboard, and even though Tim’s as tall as the biggest tree in New York, his arms don’t seem as long, breaking off halfway into the cupboard like the feeble sticks passers-by call branches. He shifts, moving closer towards her, and she finds her hands stilling, the sponge releasing the suds as her fingers press it hard into the plate. She suddenly becomes aware of his proximity, romance novels Lois sent her imbedded into her bones, as she feels like she’s stopped breathing altogether.

He’s behind her, back pressed to hers, and she stiffens, because this reminds her of the Mornings After following Fred’s party and what came of it. The revelations and the tingling and how that lead in her stomach sort of shifted every time she caught Tim giving her a sideways glance she’s not sure she was supposed to catch. His arms are boxing in the air above her head, and she finds herself staring at the tap, feeling him push and pull away from her as he leans up more until his whole being is pressed against her lightly thrumming one.

Time moves slow with him, and when his hands grip the dish, it flashing momentarily in her vision, it speeds up again, betraying her, making her lose those precious sensations and moments she can’t lodge into her memory quick enough. She curses her parents for not selecting the photographic memory gene.

Her legs choose this time to move back. She bumps into him, the bowl is a slight pressure against her back, and she shuffles to the side quickly, like Matt’s stutters, and grabs the dishtowel. His eyes flicker up to hers, fingers loose around the bowl before they tighten, like some reflex, like he’s stopping himself from touching her. She’s thinking it’s that, hoping, because she doesn’t want it to be anything else.

Tim inhales, his whole body pulls away from her, arches so there’s distance between the sink where she was and him. She looks down, bangs falling into her eyes, itching ferociously at her skin like the dust on her bedside table. He presses his lips together as her hands move slowly with the towel, the plate already dry in her hands, and he takes a step back before diverting. 

It’s like he can’t get away from her fast enough.

He pauses to place the bowl on the table, as if he’s suddenly lost his appetite. “Sorry,” she says, and his feet pad away like the word isn’t layered.

*

To sum it up, Tyra sends her a vulgar text telling her how she needs to get her ass out of the self-pitying pool and be the Julie Taylor who may stutter in front of Tim Riggins but sure as hell doesn’t take his shit lying down – or in her own apartment while he seems to dominate the place as if it’s his own shack. It’s the kick in the ass she needs and knows Tyra would give her if she was in the same city. So, she calls Vanessa, a girl from dance, who runs a little studio a few blocks from Julie’s and asks whether she needs a hand from her on-call dance teacher. Julie leaves the apartment with a slam of the door, tired of skirting around Tim as if he’ll attack her somehow. She’s not the scared teenage girl anymore. She doesn’t need protecting from Riley or the heartbreak that’s bound to come when she messes with boys. Julie Taylor is a big girl now – and even if she wasn’t, she’s a Taylor. They’re supposed to be fearless. They’re supposed to evoke fear.

Julie walks because cabs are a little too much and she doesn’t want to cheat herself out of the fresh air and city noises and herself, in her environment, without the Texan sun and the plague of football. She takes a little longer than necessary and apologises profusely to a smiling Vanessa who hushes her by pulling on Julie’s arm to get her into the apartment. She’s lucky because her neighbour’s aren’t as colourfully psycho as Julie’s – she can make as much noise as she wants, just as long as she sends a letter to her neighbours stating to excuse the noise.

“Thanks for the call,” Vanessa says, manoeuvring to her kitchen while Julie drops her bag on a chair in the living room. The studio isn’t a proper dance studio, like the one Julie rehearses in and has always dreamed of living in. It’s an apartment that is lived in daily, has the photo frames aligned on draws, and cushion covers that are fading with use. Vanessa’s apartment is just spacious, and Julie’s a little jealous of the privacy she gets with halls and proper rooms.

“No problem,” Julie slides her hands into her pockets. “I’ve been meaning to call you, anyway.”

“Yeah?” Vanessa fills up a glass with a soft drink, “I heard about your living situation.” She moves towards Julie, gestures for her to sit on the worn-out couch, and follows her soon after. “I wasn’t surprised that you haven’t called in a while. The kids sure do miss you.”

Vanessa offers Julie a cup, and she takes it with a smile, taking a long sip before placing it on a coaster. “I just got a little busy,” Julie shrugs, placing her hands on her knees with an awkward movement of her body as she tries to settle into the couch. “I’ve missed the kids, too. I feel like I’m living with one,” she tries to crack a smile, but it falls, sort of like a deflated balloon once the helium has lost its charm.

“Well, I could really use you this week. If you don’t mind,” Vanessa smiles over the rim of her cup, like a conspirator.

Julie smiles, “Use me.”

*

It’s been more than a week since she called Vanessa, and she’s been almost living at the studio ever since. She buys a balloon from the newsagents along the way to _her_ hot dog stand and walks slowly to Vanessa’s because she enjoys the fresh air and Dad called last night to make sure she’s been getting some. Apparently her last email with photographs of her attached looked too “pale” and how dare she set such a bad example for Little Gracie Belle? She doesn’t think of Tim, or the fact that she won’t finish her hot dog for the purpose of giving it to him. 

When she arrives, loud music is blaring, and she doesn’t wince at the sound of Britney’s earlier tracks, finding her feet tapping to a beat once she slides her slip-ons by the door and closes it. “Honey, I’m home,” she shouts, and Vanessa’s head appears from the studio room, laughing.

“You’re late.”

She waves the balloon that kisses the ceiling, “I brought a forgive-me present?”

Vanessa gestures with her hand for her to get into the studio. The Studio, with captials and even a little TM placed somewhere on the top, is just a bare room with no furniture. Vanessa’s certificates of her accomplishments in dancing are displayed on the walls along with framed pictures the girls have drawn. A large mirror glued to a sliding door that hides a wardrobe with little odd knick knacks Julie thinks belongs to previous and current students is the only mirror in this room. It’s not like _Center Stage_ or anything as immaculate as the proper dance studios, but it does the trick somehow. It’s simple and Julie likes simple. 

When Julie reaches the door, she leans against the frame, watching as five girls follow Vanessa’s instructions and mimic her. One of them says hello, pausing in her movements, and Vanessa snaps her fingers to keep the girl concentrating. Distractions are bad, Julie remembers, and when you falter on the stage you falter in your performance and quite possibly your life. Sometimes she thinks her old dance teacher’s rather negative views reflect her current situation. 

Julie waits for the break, the balloon in her hand bobs up and down as she tries to still it. She waits just outside the threshold and as the girls cross it to reward themselves with a glass of water, Julie stops the third girl in the line and wraps the balloon string around her wrist. “Happy Birthday,” she says and her reward is a hug. 

Julie stays until it’s almost eight before she reluctantly crosses Vanessa’s own threshold to eventually struggle over her own. She knows that once she passes her own she won’t be as pleased as the little girl.

She hates how this isn’t as simple as it used to be.

*

Tyra was right. When Tim Riggins is bored, he’s _bored._

He slips out the door, doesn’t bother with explaining where he’s going – sometimes he comes back with plastic bags filled with shopping (her things included) and sometimes it’s the mail and sometimes, if she’s having a particularly bad day, his hands are empty and the slant of his mouth slips from his face entirely when he sees her – or who he’s going with and Julie won’t admit she worries on occasion.

She’s losing something that never really belonged to her.

She works her way up to her room with deflated steps admitting defeat to a battle she’s not even sure she’s fighting. She doesn’t know _who_ she’s fighting, either. Lying on her bed, her hand reaches for the phone sitting in it’s cradle. Exhaling a sigh of relief, she’s glad that this hasn’t changed.

Julie curls into the phone as if it was Tyra’s arms, and she’s consoling her from another state in another time with other problems weighing her down. There’s distance between them, something far more significant than literal, and she blames herself for dropping off the map and being caught up in a whirlwind of what she knew would happen. 

Julie doesn’t say anything to Tyra, just breathes into the phone, and she can see the slant of her mouth, the disappointment haunting Tyra’s blue eyes, “I’m so sorry, Julie.”

She shrugs, “It’s bound to happen, right?”

“If he goes back to that cheating cheerleader bitch, I’ll kill him.”

Tyra always knows how to make her feel better, even at a distance.

*

The apartment is suffocating.

She knocks on Martha’s door, decides to initiate a little ‘girl’s day out’ that Martha’s been dying for. She’s worse than Lois at times, and Julie never thought that was possible.

“You still owe me that lunch date,” she grins, holding up a finger as she gathers her bags, Ferret in the distance, and flicks her keys into her palm. “Where to?”

Julie shrugs, “I owe you, remember?”

Martha pulls a sad grin, locking her door; she nods to hers, “In there?”

Another lift of the shoulders, she keeps her head down, and Martha’s arms slide across her shoulders.

*

There’s a movie Julie’s too timid to say she wants to watch, as Tim’s sitting on the couch, legs stretched out to cross at his ankles on the coffee table. She pauses at the staircase, feet stopping on their own accord as she’s impulsively planned a night of reading her paperback. Again.

“There’s some Anne Hathaway movie on in a minute,” he says, fingers pressing buttons on the remote as it settles on the channel. 

Julie looks down to gain the confidence to take in his profile. His arms are crossed over his chest and the remote has been abandoned on the arm of the couch. Julie draws forward, believing it’s safe to enter the lion’s den, and she moves behind the couch to not disturb his legs, and sits in the corner. She tries to pack herself up into a neat little square so she won’t come untangled.

The phone rings; Martha’s playing the role of saving grace and invites her out again.

*

“You want to stay with me tonight?” Martha tilts her head, palm gripping the door, and Julie thinks for a moment, fingers tapping against her leg, as Martha motions to her own door, “Give you some peace.”

Julie shakes her head, “No thanks.”

“It’s not imposing,” Martha raises her eyebrows, as if to challenge something Julie’s unsure she’s given the scent of off, “and I don’t mind. I’ll lock Chester in the cupboard again.”

She grins, “Stop watching _Harry Potter._ ”

“It’s not my fault I succumb to the Hollywood peer pressure,” she rolls her eyes, and her grip tightens on the doorknob. “I’m serious, Julie. You can stay with me. We can have one of those girly sleepovers where we get naked and have a pillow fight.”

Julie laughs, hands sliding into the back pockets of her jeans, “You’ve never been to a sleepover, huh?”

Martha shrugs, “Hollywood.”

Nodding, Julie sighs, darting a glance to her apartment, “No, I better go.” Pulling her eyebrows together, she looks back to Martha, offering her a shrug as if that’ll convince her that being in her apartment would be best. “Got to face my problems, you know?”

“You’ve been facing this one for a bit, from how I’ve interpreted things.”

Shrugging, Julie pulls at her hair, “I’ll see you tomorrow or something.”

She starts moving, back to Martha because the look on her face is eating away at her. Glancing over her shoulder, Martha nods, keys inserted in the cut and her fingers are twisting it while her other hand works at the doorknob, “My apartment is always free.”

Julie twirls, slowly walking backwards, “I know. Thank you,” the door opens smoothly under her palm.

*

Julie feels drained. Sitting on her bathroom vanity, she pulls a brush through her hair absently. Her mind is in another place, where paranoia settles in nicely and she starts imagining scenarios that she knows are true, have heard that they’re true, and that gnawing feeling in her stomach intensifies, morphing into an itch.

Tim’s footsteps are loud on the stairs, pitter patter like rain on her wooden panels, and he’s leaning against the doorframe of her bathroom, arms crossed, wearing only his boxers. His lips are slanted in that tired way of his that’s so relaxed she wants to melt into him. “You mad at me?”

She feels her arm still, midway through pulling the brush in her already soft hair and she swallows, “No.”

He pushes a smile to his face, tries for an icebreaking “Liar” that doesn’t take away any of the tension she knows she’s at fault for. He sighs, running a hand through his hair, “Jules –”

“Just drop it,” she finds herself saying, the brush making its way to the end of her hair before moving onto another section. Her hand is moving robotically, as if she’s programmed to do this, and she watches his reaction, the duck of his head before he looks up at her, keeping his eyes on her. It unnerves her, his sudden attention to detail. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” he blinks, nodding vaguely, “it does.”

She looks down; pressing her lips together and settles her hands into her lap. Pressing her legs into them, it keeps them from shaking. The brush sits on her leg, its handle cool against her skin. “Tim.”

“Jules,” he mimics, a sad smile that’s meant to reassure her settles against his mouth, “I’m sorry I brought up Saracen. I didn’t mean to pry.”

She shrugs, “It doesn’t matter. We’re over.”

He looks down, “Yeah, it does. Just because you’re over and done with each other doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t still there.”

“There are no leftover feelings.”

He shakes his head, “Even the sad ones.” Tim looks up at her, and she thinks she can finally see him, the patches of him that he keeps hidden and disguises with liquor, girls or tones. The wall he keeps up so effectively seems to have drained him, and he looks tired, a little worse than she thinks of her own appearance, and her lips press together at the sight. “They’re hard to talk about, so we lock them up.”

There’s her answer. That gnawing in her stomach ceases, and her hard grip on the hairbrush handle deflates slightly. Her mouth feels dry as she looks at him, her mind unsettled from deciphering all the underlying messages Tim has given her with a few sentences. She blinks slowly, “And throw away the key?”

He grins, amusement sparking in his eyes, however light and dull it may be the butterflies in her stomach still burst into life. He chuckles, “So that’s how those stories go?”

She breathes out a laugh, ducking her head as she feels that flush heat up her face. “I meant what I said,” she says to her lap, “there are no leftover feelings. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Lyla.” 

He shrugs, “She could’ve told me herself.”

Julie bites the inside of her cheeks, nodding, because she agrees with it. It’s none of her business, like she’s been feeling ever since he turned up at her door, that she should tell him about Lyla and what’s going on with her. It’s like how he won’t go into details about Matt; just skim the surface, probe to find out what she knows before he spills any specifics. Team loyalty was always bullshit to her, but she’s learning, slowly, that it extends beyond the high school years.

Tim pushes himself off the doorframe, his feet padding slowly across the small space between them. He comes to stand before her, hands coming to rest on the vanity on either side of her, locking her in. She feels his mouth against her cheek, the light flutter of his eyelashes skimming her skin as he blinks, “You’re not a stand in.”

Her own eyes close, and his hand wraps around hers, pulling the hairbrush out of her watery grip. He turns to kiss her, hard pressure against her cheek, and his large hands come to fall into her hair, wrapping his fingers around the recently untangled strands.

She grins at the fact that he’s going to tangle them on purpose.

He presses his mouth against hers in a slow kiss, mouth opening over hers at a snail’s pace. It’s lazy, in a way, and it makes her sleepy in that inappropriate way as his hands flicker through her hair, pulling at it slightly, before his palms rest on her thighs. Her hands grip his shoulders before settling into a sluggish cup.

Smiling against his lips, she pulls away, fingers fluttering to the hem of her tank top before pulling it over her head, discarding it in her clean sink. Tim presses closer to her, moving between her legs, and his mouth is harder on hers, that lazy slant of his pressing against hers. His hands slide over her back, resting between her shoulder blades as he presses their chests together. Julie’s settle in his hair, trying to pull him closer to her as his mouth opens under hers, growing restless with the sluggish rhythm he set.

Her fingers settle on the waistband of his boxers, sliding under the fabric to caress a tiny patch of skin as Tim’s follow her direction, his hooking in the waistband of her long pants. He grins, pulling away from her and resting his forehead against her chin, looking down at the pattern on the fabric. She groans, embarrassment flushing through her as he can’t bite his tongue, “Elmo?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

He presses his mouth back against hers, pulling her off the sink as her legs wrap around his waist. His fingers latch onto her waistband again, pulling it down to the middle of her thigh before setting her down on her feet. She pulls them down, kicking her pants off and Tim’s kicking his boxers off before wrapping his arms around her waist, mouth against hers, and she’s sitting on the vanity again. 

The surface is cold through her underwear, and Tim’s fingers hook onto the waistband, sliding them down as she tries to wiggle some space between the surface and her skin. It’s slow, and his fingers brush over her flesh in teasing jest. She sinks her nails into the skin on his shoulder blades in a weak form of retaliation.

It’s colder than she thought previously, her underwear settling at her ankles as she kicks them off. Tim’s fiddling with a wrapper he’s snatched from one of the drawers in her bathroom that he must’ve snuck in here when he decided to go shopping solo. He’s back at her, arms wrapped tightly around her middle as she feels like she’s teetering on the edge of the vanity. 

She gasps when he sinks into her, his mouth pauses on hers as he lets out a slow groan, and she grips at the panes of his back, nails sinking into his skin without the purpose of getting slight revenge. He pushes against her, a rhythm that gets faster quicker than she remembers, and her legs wrap tightly around him, causing him to sink deeper into her. The heel of her foot presses against his lower back as he presses his mouth firmly on hers, his hands sliding through her hair and over her back before mussing up her hair again.

Her entire being feels hot, scorching where his hands touch her, and when she falls apart, mouth open and motionless under his, her grip on him slackens as she places her head on his shoulder. She keeps shuddering against him, his hips jerking up against her, and she tries to ride it out with him instead of turning into concrete beneath his heated grip. Turning her face into his neck, she kisses it lazily, flicking her tongue out in that way that he does to her, and he shortly follows her, hand on her breast that slides down her side, gripping at her leg; the tenseness throughout his body slithers away like water. 

She feels Tim press his cheek into her hair, his hands settle on her hips, fingers squeezing absently as he catches his breath. “Not just a stand in,” she feels his lips against her scalp, her hair twitching under the movement of his mouth pulling a grin. “Dunno how else to tell you, Jules.” He presses a lingering kiss into her hair.

When he pulls out, she doesn’t feel as empty as before.

*

It feels awkward, this sudden reconciliation. She’s used to sputtering words apologising, taking back words that meant too much to be swept under the rug. She’s always thinking of Matt, considering him her experience in the dating world. There was Ryan and Seth and a waiter called Jared, but it always comes back to Matt.

They sit on the floor. It’s new, because it’s usually the couch, kitchen table, or bench. He takes up more space on the floor, she thinks, with his legs spread out while hers are tucked underneath her, wooden panels imprinting their patterns into her skin. She pulls at the hem of his shirt as he rubs his fingers against the wood. The floor needs a good sweep.

He pulls in his bottom lip, shifting so he’s leaning against his palms, eyes surveying her. She keeps her attention to the hem of his plaid shirt, one that sort of smells like Texas. “You know I go through your phonebook, right?”

She shrugs, “The phone bill got higher.”

He runs a hand through his hair before it smacks loudly on the floor. “I didn’t mean to blow up at you.”

“You didn’t.”

He tilts his head, eyebrow raised, and she tries to keep her glances down, not so obvious, so he can’t sustain eye contact and convince her that she’s a real idiot for thinking that one. “I was just burned,” he shrugs, bare shoulders a pink hue under the lighting.

“I was scared,” she looks up at him from underneath her bangs, angling her head so she can see him through the curtain. “You and Lyla are this big thing. Matt and I have our problems, and there are these obstacles we need to face together to be able to become a big thing like before.”

He shakes his head, “Garrity and I aren’t a big thing.”

“There was a pool,” her fingers grip tightly at the hem, curling it around, “at Tyra’s college. Betting on when you two would just get hitched.”

“It’s not going to happen.”

Julie presses her lips together, pushing her mouth up to the side; courage flows into her slowly, and she glances at his chin. “Maybe.”

“It’s not.”

She shrugs.

“You know I don’t believe in this destiny bullshit you keep shovin’ down my throat. Honestly, I’d start thinkin’ you wished it was true with you and Seven.”

The tingles stampeding underneath her knee come full-force, a lot quicker than usual, and she pushes her feet from underneath her, keeping herself curled up as her hands pause on her thighs, “It’s not.”

His eyebrows raise, gesturing his hand to her, “See.” Pushing his knee up, he palms it, sighing, “Garrity and I aren’t this big thing that’s going to come back together. We’re not some endgame relationship on a television show you watch. It’s done, it’s over, and I know what I want now.” He’s frustrated when he runs his hand through his hair, fingers gripping at it hard before letting it go. It’s like he’s trying to imprint this into her brain, make this knowledge overtake the previous, and the only way he feels he can get this done is by inflicting some sort of pain on his own scalp. “I don’t know about you and Seven. I can’t say anything about it, but destiny doesn’t happen unless you make it happen.”

She pulls her eyebrows together, palms wrapping around her ankles, “Matt and I have grown out of each other.” Julie shrugs, looking at the floorboards, because these issues between Matt and her stay between her and sometimes Tyra Collette’s voicemail. Telling Tim is like giving him ammunition against her – or Matt, she’s not sure about their relationship and that swelling of anxiety erecting in her stomach wishes to never know the state of it – and Julie doesn’t know if they’ve come this far for heart-to-hearts and conversations that reflect diary entries. “We tried, we failed. Our ship is sinkable.”

Tim shrugs, “The Garrity-Riggins ship sunk a while ago. I guess we were clinging to icebergs.”

Her mouth pulls with this, breaking from her hard resistance, as Tim’s found the DVDs she’s hid behind the pillows on the couch. She shifts, sighing, her tongue starting to feel thick and heavy as she tries to address what Martha’s been asking her and what Tyra’s been trying to define through protests of not wanting to open her eyes and see what’s in front of her. “What is this, Tim?” she bites her lip, hand clenches around her ankle, and she glances at him, bangs filtering her view of him, “This … thing. Is it fun? Some pastime until you head back to Dillon?”

He runs a hand through his hair, fingers tangling within it like she’s felt in her own, and he sighs, eyes shifting to focus at a point on the stairs. Julie tries to prepare herself for the blow she knows isn’t written in the romance novels Lois has shoved down her throat. He shrugs, eyes trailing over her, settling on her hand curled around her ankle, “It’s whatever you want it to be.”

She rolls her eyes, “I’m asking you.”

“This is a trap,” he sighs, “because whatever I say, there’s a risk you’re not gonna like it.”

“Am I not going to like it?”

He shrugs, a heavy lift of his shoulders, and he seems to crawl into himself a little, sink into the floorboards, because he looks smaller, in that frightened animal way. She’s never seen it before and she knows she doesn’t like it. “Don’t know,” he breathes, the impact she expected doesn’t come. Instead, she’s left with a faint fuzziness enveloping her thoughts and impulsively thought up predictions of how this would play out.

Tim Riggins always seems to be surprising her.

Julie feels the Texan heat descend upon her as she fiddles against the floor, the cracks in the boards pressing tight against her skin. Her mouth feels loose when she mouths out, breath a hoarse whisper, “You won’t know unless you say.”

He seems to suck in his lips, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his arms on his knees lethargically. “It’s fun,” he says, eyes on her feet, her fingers pressing tightly against her skin at this, the sudden betrayal she feels towards the bullshit Lois has been feeding her. “But,” he shrugs at this like it doesn’t matter, as though it won’t help his case; he slides his feet away from him, stilling them when they’re near her and his knees are faintly bent. “Maybe it’s more?”

She looks up, blinking the tips of her bangs away from clinging to her lashes, and she pulls at her mouth, biting the inside of her cheek. Julie thinks this is the Tim Riggins Lyla saw, the one who stayed with her until the college applications were received and he let her go like the romance movies promised. He locked this one up in one of those dark closets she’s always feared, and he’s opening up the door for her. He’s looking under his bed for the monsters he hopelessly believed in as a child.

“I don’t define stuff,” he pulls his legs back, “because it ends up screwing up in the end. Karma and all,” he shrugs, “but this isn’t what you think it is, Jules, and if it is, then I’ve read this all wrong. I’m not much of a reader,” he cracks a grin at this, as if it’s some inside joke, and Julie’s not one for other people’s inside jokes, little phrases that sweep over her head that others can laugh at her for, but, in this instance, the irritation that usually settles within her isn’t there. She finds herself not minding, because Tim’s sort of pulling her in, letting her in on the joke; he’s sharing with her in that cryptic way of his where he doesn’t explain everything in detail like Landry with his algebra equations. “But I can read this, I think. I don’t need someone reading it to me to be able to figure it out.”

Her mouth feels dry, throat bare, and she tries to swallow; her voice hitches with a croak, “What have you figured out?”

Tim pulls at his hair, tilting his head, and a smile she’s missed greets her without slipping away at the mere sight of her. He shrugs playfully, eyebrows raised in that child-like way of his, “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

*

Tim’s hardly on her phone, and when he is, he makes his calls at night. It’s the ones she’s been able to witness.

Curled up in her bed with the sheets wrapped around her, she can hear him in the kitchen, pacing, words pitching as he disappears underneath her and becoming loud when he opens the fridge. “Billy,” he says, and that seems to begin the tirade on Billy’s half of the phone. (She can tell; Tim sighs a lot.) He was here moments before, tucking her into bed, pressing a sound kiss against her forehead while excusing himself to god-knows-where. Momentarily, she panics he’ll settle for the couch again, like he’s rediscovered his love for the piece of furniture that can’t hold the length of him. The panic is wedged away when she hears the loud presses of buttons of her phone. 

She can’t sleep with his voice so loud in her ears. 

“Yeah, Billy, I hear ya.” He’s been saying that for five minutes now. She doesn’t know how Billy Riggins is, but by the sounds of it, he’s pissed. It’s not like he doesn’t have every right to be. From what she’s heard, his car fixing business is taking off and Tim’s been home helping him. Apparently Tim’s the one who has more information on cars then the one who owns a garage.

“Yeah, I’m an idiot, I got that the first few times,” he seems to huff, repressing that usual chuckle that’ll only infuriate Billy. She thinks Billy’s a bit like Dad, and therefore she sort of understands how his mind is turning right now. By the sounds of exasperation in Tim’s voice, it’s heading in that direction where he forbids her from seeing any boy and forcing her into nunnery with football being used to save people. 

“No,” he sighs, and then he presses it into Billy’s eardrum, “no. It’s not about a girl. I’m not being stupid. This isn’t about Lyla.” Tim sighs, opening draws, shutting them quietly with a soundly click, “It’s not always about Lyla. No, it’s not. She’s got a name. Shut up Billy.”

Tim lets out an exhale of air, momentarily slipping out from his charade of being quiet. Confused by the bright light of the kitchen, his voice pitches a little higher, trying to push the conversation into a wall where it’ll end. “Yeah, yeah; I’ll be home soon. I don’t know when.” He slams a cupboard shut, mutters a _shit_ that she thinks Billy misunderstands as he flicks the tap on then off, “Now you’re bein’ stupid.” His accent gets thicker before he sighs loudly, trying to pull at his reigns of tone-control. “Get the chick with the grease to deal with it. She knows more shit than I do about engines. Yeah, it’s possible Billy. Stop lying. I’ll come home when I’m ready.”

With a sigh, Tim’s voice fades with his movements, finally coming to a stalemate, she thinks, as she can feel both New York and Texas stop spinning. “Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

The light flickers off after that.

*

When Tim slides into bed, it’s an hour later and she still hasn’t fallen asleep. She’s not even on the brink of it.

He curls behind her effortlessly, like he hasn’t been away from her for the time that’s passed where they weren’t even on speaking terms. He fits in with her in ways she didn’t know were possible for a boy she never really got to know and still really doesn’t. She pulls at the blankets, wrapping them a little tighter around her, forcing them to become a second skin. She needs protection from him and the way he fits like that clichéd puzzle piece on a board. His hands fall flat against her stomach, sliding down to feel for her own and lands on her arms. He settles there, her own hands clasped tightly against the sheets.

He presses his face into her hair and stills. His entire body curls around hers, his cold feet pushing against the skin of her ankles. Putting it plainly, Tim wraps around her like Christmas paper. At first, it takes some fiddling before he’s snug and it looks right, regardless of the overuse (or under use) of sticky tape and the state of the paper.

Once he relaxes, she tenses, “What was that about?”

He hums into her hair. “What?” she feels his breath on her neck, his nose pressing against her scalp as he shifts.

“The phone call,” she blinks, eyes burning from staying up so late waiting for him in the dark. Sometimes, with him, she always feels like she’s trapped in the dark, even after they’ve made some progress by shedding some light. She shifts, sort of pulling away from him, sort of moulding against him; she’s not sure which bench she’s sitting on.

He sighs, hand pulling the hair back from her neck, “Just talkin’ to Billy,” slips in the Texan accent as he presses an open-mouthed kiss to her shoulder. 

She waits, hoping for more, that Tim will finally open up to her just a little, give her a slither of light. “Okay,” she presses her eyes closed, the burning doesn’t increase or decrease; it just sits.

He doesn’t give her that fine string of light she wants. Instead, he licks his fingers and presses the flame of a candle she didn’t see burning, until it’s too late, out.

*

Tim’s hair is shocking in the morning; sometimes she thinks he wakes up in the middle of the night to rub his scalp against a balloon.

She wakes up with him there, face pressed into the crook of her neck, nose denting her skin. His arms are vices around her, hands having found hers, and his feet are no longer cold against her ankles. He’s wrapped around her like a second skin and she finds herself running her fingers over his knuckles. They don’t wake up like this; something in her tells her to savour it, so she stills, keeps her shifting minor, and he follows her when she drags her legs away from the heat of the sheets to someplace cooler.

Tim wakes up shortly after, shifting into her neck, lips pressing lazily and sleepily into her as his eyes are adjusting to the light. “You should buy curtains or somethin’, Taylor.”

She tries to glance at him at her neck, finding her chin bump slightly into the side of his temple. Her fingers stop their skimming, his locking with hers tightly. He sighs against her neck, hot air that matches the warmth of her palms as his fingers are like metal chains when she tries to free them to flex. She blinks against the light, “Good morning to you, too.”

He grins, pressing “Mornin’” as a sloppy kiss to the underside of her jaw. Tim shifts, curves even more around her, and hooks his feet around her ankles, his toes dancing on the arch underneath her foot. She tries to shift away, that ticklish sensation that causes her to wriggle into him causes him to grin, pulling her tighter against him. “What a nice morning it is,” he lips trail over her neck, stretching out a little as he tries to get over to the other side. 

Settling back into the pillow, covered with her hair, Tim unlaces their fingers to whisper his own over her arm, sometimes lifting off and skating air as the hairs rise up to his touch. She feels a little ticklish, not as bad as when she was a kid, and she furrows her brow, smiling, as she tries to work him out. Tim hums, a lazy smile gracing his lips as he watches his finger skim over her skin, coming at a pause at her wrist. “You’re not ticklish anymore.”

Her eyebrows gather, “I never really was.”

“Huh,” he grins around the word, as if liking the taste, his finger connecting with her wrist and drawing odd squiggles. “I always figured you were ticklish.”

She grins, shifting on the bed so she can lie on her back to face him, “Well, you were wrong.”

Tim hums in response. “So,” he lifts himself up a little, curling his other hand into a fist and resting it against his cheek. “Can people see us from there?” he nods towards her bare window and she grins, smothering her face in the pillow, catching the side of her head with his shoulder, as his finger pauses on her wrist, pressing in slightly. “Oh, Julie Taylor,” he whistles, “never thought you were like _that_.”

“Shut up, Tim,” she laughs into the pillow, wiping her bangs off her forehead and pulling her hair away as she settles to look at him. “I’d trust that you’d be an expert at that now.”

“At what?” he pulls his eyebrows together, hands pushing her hair away from curtaining her face. She rolls slightly to lie on her stomach, the side of her body resting along the edge of his; he shifts back so she can try to push herself into the sheets. He’s a hoverer; Tim likes to be a shadow early in the morning. 

She rolls her eyes, shifts her head and tries to mumble it into the pillow and have it soak up her embarrassment, “Public sex.”

He laughs, “You’ve got me all wrong, Julie Taylor.”

She shrugs, fingers pulling away strands sticking to the corners of her lips, “Seems we’ve got some bonding to do.”

He grins, rolls onto his back and settles on the sheets. Running his hands over his face, he groans, “You’re killin’ me here.” She laughs, unpinning her arm from her side to run her fingers through his hair. 

Tim wraps his fingers around her wrist, pulling her leisurely moving hands away from his hair, and places it on his warm chest. His thumb moves up and down, trying for circles, as her hand curls into a loose fist, the tinier finger of the set lightly drawing lines on his skin. His finger trails towards her palm, picking it up off his heated skin and encasing it with his own. 

She watches him watch the movement of his fingers as he tugs at hers, wrapping his around hers and balling them into a united fist before flattening his palms against hers. “You’ve got tiny hands,” he says, pressing his palm hard against hers as her fingers barely cover his.

“It comes with the territory of being a girl,” she grins as he wraps his fingers between hers to touch the back of her hand. “We’ve got to make sacrifices, sometimes.”

Tim hums, “You could fit them in a mouse hole.”

“Is this a hint that my nails are ratty?” Julie tries to pull her hand back, but Tim’s fingers wrap tightly around her palm, holding it between the valley amid the pillows.

Tim laughs, “You should paint them zebra. You can get contacts like that.”

She grins, “Are you admitting something here?”

He shrugs, shifting on the bed as he lies more on his back, pulling her hand with him before he drops the back of his wrist into the valley. “Lando told me. We were Googling things for Billy one day, and he was just blabbing on about something.”

“Landry’s pretty unique.”

“He’s a good guy.”

Julie nods, “He is.”

Tim hums as he lets go of her hand to drop his around her. He pulls himself onto his side and drops an arm around her back, sliding her nearer to him. “You’re too far away,” he says to her raised eyebrow, and his hand curves around her side as she fidgets to regain that comfortable position he destroyed by his simple pull.

“It’s almost midday,” she says quietly, the messy linens absorbing half the words. Tim’s eyebrow raises, a slanted smile on hand, and he’s tapping his fingers down her spine before sliding to her hip to squeeze her there.

“We’ve got all the time in the world, Taylor,” he pulls himself forward, placing a kiss between her shoulder blades, “why not waste it?”

Eyebrows pulling together, she watches him kiss the back of her shoulder, hand sliding from it’s place at her hip to flatten against the small of her back. “I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

Tim shrugs, shifting back to his side of the bed, a lot closer than before with his arm latched onto her and his restless hand spinning circles into her skin. “You make your own wisdom,” he winks at her, and he doesn’t speak after that, the smile slowly sliding from his face like the day morphing into night.

He doesn’t want to get out of bed. She lies on her stomach, eyes fluttering shut on occasion as Tim’s hands are sometimes in her hair before trailing down her bare back to slide across her waist and settle. He’s like an anchor, keeping her there and the slightest shift from her causes him to tighten up and resemble metal.

She groans, pressing her cheek into the pillow, “We’ve got to move _sometime_.”

He grins, shoulder pressing against her as he shuffles towards her. Tim doesn’t believe in personal space; he likes melting into her, like there’s no time left and he’s trying to make up for the years that he’ll miss the simple act of brushing rough fingers over skin. “Sometime is not now.”

She rolls her eyes, “Smart ass.”

“Wouldn’t want me any other way,” he mumbles, lips pull a lazy smile as his finger whispers over her face, following a track from her chin to the corner of her eye to her hairline. 

Julie pulls a shrug, “There’d be some alterations I’d make.”

Tim shuffles, leaning his cheek against his palm, “Yeah? What’d they be?”

She runs her eyes over him, chest painted brightly from the sun that’s been able to surpass the buildings of New York. Tapping her chin, she moves her finger to tap his nose, tracing his cheek and skipping over to his chest. “For one, you wouldn’t wear any clothes,” he grins at this, and she shrugs, shoulders pulling up tight against her neck, “because, really, you kind of don’t wear them anyway.”

“Because I know you like it like that,” he grins, her finger pulls away from his stomach and her palm falls flat against the bed. “Now, I wouldn’t object to you following that little suggestion.”

Julie rolls her eyes, shuffles onto her arms and turns to face the wall, “I’m not that easy, Tim.” Shifting so she’s on her side, bare back to him, she hears him move, the sheets rustling and pulling from and against her as they wrap tightly around him with his inelegant shuffles. 

His hand falls onto her shoulder, squeezes it lightly, and trails down her arm to fall across her stomach. He pulls right behind her, legs curving with hers and she tries to hook their ankles as he evades her. She hears him breathing behind her ear and he kisses the side of her neck, “I know.”

*

“You wanna go out?” Julie pulls her handbag up to her shoulder and leaves a finger underneath the strap, pausing in her movements to look at the couch for some enthusiastic movement.

“Nah,” he shuffles, and that seems to be the only enthusiasm she’ll be getting out of him for the moment, “figured I’d just sit in here.” Tim yawns, stretching his arms above his head, hands clenched into fists, and the channel on the television shifts.

Her finger slips from underneath the strap to fall into her dress pocket. She furrows her eyebrows as Tim’s never been one to say no to a ‘day in the real world’. “You’ve been sitting for a while.” She approaches the couch to stand at the side, scrutinising his profile. Tim shrugs, she shuffles, “You like going outside.”

Another shrug, he flicks the channel, “Not today.”

“It’s sunny.” Her fingers clench around the material inside her pocket, and she moves her shoulder, the bag strap moving slightly. “You like the sun. We can even buy that stupid football you want so we can reminisce about the brilliance of Powderpuff.”

Tim doesn’t even cast her a glance when he says, “Not today.”

*

She goes out with Martha instead.

“What’s the trouble now?” Martha grins and sucks air through her straw. They’re walking along the paths outside buildings, wasting time, having done what Martha wanted and went to McDonald’s for some lunch. Tim won’t be happy when he finds out. She’s unsure whether it’ll be about her breaking her ‘healthy-healthy-healthy diet’ (he’s dubbed it as that; apparently saying the word three times adds excitement) or that she had McDonald’s without him (he’s been craving a burger). “You know,” she says around her straw, elbow making contact with her arm, “with Boy.”

Julie rolls her eyes, pulling the strap of her handbag up her shoulder and takes a chip out of her cardboard pocket. She ate slowly just to get under Martha’s skin. It works. “Nothing is wrong,” she says, taking a bite of the chip, “and nothing would be wrong. I wanted to hang out with you.”

Martha cocks an eyebrow, angling her body to face her as they keep walking down the path. “You sure? You look like you haven’t seen sunlight in a decade.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

Angling herself straight, Martha shrugs, one of the many straps on her shoulder shifting down her arm, “Maybe. But exaggeration doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Julie sighs, finishing the chip as Martha’s hand pulls three from her little box. “He didn’t want to come out today. It’s no big deal.”

The arched eyebrow doesn’t disappear. “A guy like that doesn’t like staying indoors for long. Hell, I doubt he likes staying in one spot. Boy looks like the type to always keep moving. You know, the jittery type.”

“You can stop referring to him as Boy,” Julie eats another chip, stopping at traffic lights as Martha steals three more. “Since _when_ do you refer to him as ‘Boy’?”

Martha shrugs, “It was either Boy or McArms.”

“McArms?”

“Have you seen them?” Martha’s eyes gouge like Lois’ and Julie can’t help but laugh. “What are you laughing at, J?”

Crossing the road, Julie shakes her head, “You remind me of someone.” Sighing, she offers her pocket of chips to Martha and brushes her hands together. Looking around, she finally takes in the sights, feeling a bit like Tim, drinking it in once conversation dulls. “Where are we going, anyway?”

Martha shrugs, walking slightly in front of her. Turning to look at her over her shoulder, she smiles, lifts her shoulders with an exaggerated sigh, “Just a store.”

The ‘Just-A-Store’ turns out to be a junk shop.

Martha purchases polar bear figurines. Julie buys herself a worn football.

*

Tim keeps his old Panther things. 

“You know,” he grins, leaning against his elbows as he lies wrapped up in the sheets of her bed, “this would totally be hot if you had a cheerleader uniform.” She slips his white 33 shirt on, pulling at the hem as it drifts to settle above her knees; she feels a flood of her old self crash into her, swim through her veins and invade her senses as she suddenly feels self-conscious and her fingers miss that familiar press of a pen between them. 

She looks at him, pulling her ponytail from beneath the shirt. It smells like him; _reeks_ of the smell that still clings to his skin like air, and she’s so glad he hasn’t changed one bit. He’s just grown up from all the awkward angles that he used to be made up of and the bad mistakes she still reckons he makes but he thinks about it beforehand. She’s looking at him too long, that stupid grin threatening to spill into a shit-eating one, and she clears her throat lightly, hands pushing against the sides of the shirt as she tries to will it to melt to her knees. “It’s a little cliché, Tim.”

He shrugs bare shoulders and he shifts on the bed, sheets inching a little in tiptoes down his waist like he won’t notice. He never does; she, however, wishes she didn’t. “Don’t mean it’s not hot.”

“Besides,” she moves to his side of the bed, fingers clinging to the material of his shirt as she keeps pulling it down. She drops herself onto him as his arms wrap around her back, her forehead meeting his chin in a light bump, “didn’t you already quench that fantasy?”

Tim rests his head on a pillow, a light grin pulling at his lips as he shifts, trying to get comfortable with her half on him and half off the bed. “Okay, you got me there.” She taps his nose, resting her chin on his chest as she looks up at him. “But,” he laughs, pulling her tighter to him, “you do look good in my shirt.”

Breathing through her nose, her fingers leave his shirt, the hem riding up her legs like she knew it would, and Tim’s hands pull at the fabric as he pretends he’s just shifting his hands, the shirt just happening to get in the way. “You like saying that,” she presses her cheek to his skin, her arms wrapping loosely around him as he doesn’t arch to let them slide between his shoulder blades. Her palms hopelessly grip at his shoulders.

He shrugs, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She presses her mouth to his skin, grinning against it as she mumbles “You ever thought of getting it on with the Coach’s Daughter?” with a heavy blush that paints the sky when day shifts to night pushes against the natural tone of her skin. She feels hot all over and she wonders if he’s burning beneath her.

She feels him chuckle, his hands grip tight at her sides, “Hell yeah. One lucky bastard I am.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t say Rally Girl.”

Tim hums, “Thank god for that filter I have.”

Julie smiles, returning her cheek to his chest, her eyes fluttering closed as Tim’s arms are wrapped tight around her waist, her legs moving from hanging off the bed to wrap with his. “You don’t have a filter.”

He runs his foot up and down her leg the best he can, “Like you don’t have cold feet.”

*

She brushes her teeth, staring at herself in the mirror. Tim’s downstairs, doing god-knows-what, and she hears his heavy footsteps on her staircase and him stumble into her bathroom, heading for the sink. He grabs her toothpaste as she watches him in the mirror. 

Holding her toothbrush, she speaks against foam, “What are you doing?” 

“Brushing my teeth,” he wets the toothbrush before scrubbing, and she cocks her brow, stilling her movement to continue on like this isn’t weird at all.

“In my bathroom?”

He nods, “S’what it looks like.”

She narrows her eyes, slowly pulling her brush against her teeth, “You don’t keep your toothbrush here?”

He shakes his head with a shrug, turning the tap on and spitting into the sink. “No,” he cups water in his hand and tries to splash it in his mouth. She wants to laugh at the mess of water on his face, but her movements are stilled as she waits. He wipes his dry hand over his face, toothbrush still gripped in his wet one, “Just,” he shrugs, “don’t.”

“That’s not an answer,” she brushes slowly, watching him move to the two towels hanging on the rack. 

He wipes his face on her towel and runs his hands over it, as if that’ll dry them, and he turns to look at her, running a hand through his hair, “Want some toast?”

_No_ , she wants to say, she wants some answers, but she finishes up, spitting in the sink and pushing her toothbrush under the water he has a habit of not turning off. “Okay,” she says, head bowed and she hears him walk out.

*

Tim only goes out to fetch the mail. “Wanna join me?”

“Is it too far away for you?” she grins, leaping off the kitchen stool and grabbing the keys from the table. He opens the door for her, proud grin on his face, and locks it as she makes her way to the elevator. 

She waits for him; arms crossed over her chest as he comes up behind her and punches the button with one finger. “You’ve got to stop doing that,” she rolls her eyes, “or you’ll break it and _I’ll_ have to pay for it since _you_ don’t exist in this building.”

Tim shrugs, following her into the elevator as the doors _bing_ open. He punches another button, “Oops” with another shrug, and he stares at the numbers as the light flashes behind each one slowly.

She watches him bounce on the spot, hand gripping hers as his fingers work at her tight hold of her keys. When the door opens, he bolts, her hand gripping onto air, and she waits in the elevator, hand pushing the door back when it tries to separate them.

He comes back, grin on his face with envelopes and a couple of magazines in his hands, and spins, pushing the button, and places the keys into her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers just in case she drops them, she presumes. He doesn’t let go of it. She doesn’t think it’s a continuation of the safety precautions he is taking for her keys.

When they get back to her floor, he spins her like they’re on some dance floor and he’s laughing as she rolls her eyes. “Are you trying to distract me from asking for my mail?”

He shakes his head, “Of course not,” though his grip on it tightens and he moves his hand quickly behind his back when she makes a grab for it. Tim tucks her mail into the back of his jeans as she fiddles with her keys to find the one that’ll unlock the treasure chest of her apartment.

There’s a package at the door in the shape of a dented cardboard box with holes punched in the side. Scrawled on the top, when they approach it with slow footsteps, is _Tim_ scrawled in capitals followed by a smiley face.

Martha’s intercepted it from the postman with the tight butt.

Tim swings the apartment keys into his palm and picks up the box. “Reckon it’s a bomb?” he grins as she tries to peel the keys from his tight fist. 

Sighing, she slaps his shoulder and moves to stand behind him as he fiddles, pushing the box tight against his chest as he flicks his fingers through the dozen of keys Julie really doesn’t need in New York. He pushes the door open, moves to the side, and with a small gesture of the hand supporting the bottom of the box, waves her in. She rolls her eyes, dodges his hand seeking out to slap her on the rear in jest, and tries to kick the door shut in his face, “If it detonates, I’ll be in the bookstore.” 

Tim pushes the cardboard box next to the couch.

*

“Where are you off to?” Tim leans on the kitchen counter, biting into an apple as she tries to place her phone in her bag without having to open it. 

Julie hums before she realises Tim’s actually expecting an answer. It’s not like he asks questions that are rhetorical or anything. “I’m going to Vanessa’s.” 

His eyebrow quirks up, “Is that a codename for another Dillon Panther you’ve got stashed in the Big City?” His grin causes her to blush as she tries to not react to the comment. “You’ve been going off at random times. We hardly get any time together.”

“We’re always together, Tim. That’s sort of the problem,” she smiles, unclips her bag and places her phone inside it. “Anyway, I’ve been helping out Vanessa long before you even came here, so she takes priority over you. Sorry,” she shrugs, and he shakes his head. 

“Seriously,” he takes another bite and speaks while he chews, “where are you off to?”

She could tell him, she thinks, because what she does at Vanessa’s is important to her, and since Tim is making is way up her list of Important Things in Julie Taylor’s Life, he might as well know. But something holds her back, and maybe it’s the looseness within his shoulders as he waits for her answer, or the way he smirks in a way that is familiar and brings warmth throughout her body. She knows what it is as she debates this, taking him in as he bites into the apple, and it is none of them. It has nothing to do with Tim Riggins. “Vanessa’s,” she grabs her keys, just in case he decides to have some Tim Riggins time and try to search for Jason Street, who, by the way, has vacated the Big Apple since two years ago. She never had the chance to track him down. “She’s a couple of blocks from here. I’ll be back by six,” she walks up to him, places a kiss on his cheek, “hopefully.”

He watches her go, “I’ll be here.”

*

He opens the package from four days ago two hours after he loses his patience with her inept skills with the newly installed Xbox. “It’s not an Xbox,” he runs a hand through his hair, and she’ll laugh an “A PlayBox?” as he grabs a pillow and pushes it into his chest. 

Five minutes later, she’s getting better at this game with some animal creature that looks like a fox. He just doesn’t like admitting she’s improved without his assistance. (Having access to the Internet when Tim’s too busy using up her soap in the shower proves to be advantageous after declining to join him in saving Australia for the fifth night in a row; she calls Landry the third night and he tells her about the World Wide Web’s database of cheats.) Tim sighs, pushing himself off the couch and she moves to rest her legs across it, thumbs busily pushing the buttons of the controller in their holes. “Shit, how do I turn left?”

He laughs, padding over to the kitchen table and lifts himself onto it. “Press the arrow or move the stick thing.”

Julie frowns, holding the controller away from her as she flips it over in her sloppy examination, “What stick thing?”

Tim’s laughter is accompanied by the tearing of box flaps being pulled from being folded over each other. “We’ve been over this, Taylor. Relax.”

She rolls her eyes, “Stop thinking like that, Tim.” She presses a button and the car with her animated self diverts over a cliff. “I’m worse than Coyote.”

Clicking buttons, she’s back at the menu to smother Tim’s laughter as he tears at the corners of envelopes and purposely rips the corners of the spam catalogues; the phone rings and she can tell he doesn’t move a muscle, he drawls “Phone.”

She rolls her eyes, leaving the game at it’s menu as she twists on the couch to reach for the cordless. Pressing a button, she laughs “Hello?” and is met with Matt Saracen. Straightening up, she pulls at her shirt and stands, clearing her throat and darting her eyes to Tim who’s pretending to feign disinterest. “Hey.”

Placing a hand over her ear, she hears “Hey” mirror back and she’s climbing up the stairs with Tim’s eyes tracking her steps. 

Sitting on the bed, she tucks a leg underneath her and pulls at the hem of her shirt, “What’s up?”

“Nothin’,” Matt seems to smile, shuffles the phone and he’s sighing, “just sort of wanted to hear your voice, I guess.”

She hums. “Sorry about the emails.”

“I was wonderin’ if somethin’ happened to you. Dance keepin’ you busy or somethin’?”

Julie clears her throat, running her fingers across her collarbone, “No. That’s not up for a little while yet.”

Matt clears his throat and nods, “Yeah,” he speaks slower, drawing out the words like he’s trying to weigh the hidden meanings, “so, I was just wondering about that.”

Julie hums, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“This is kind of hard to say.”

“Just say it.”

“I hear Tim Riggins is with you,” Matt sort of coughs out, his confidence fading into bashfulness, and Julie wishes she really couldn’t read his tone. “Like, stayin’ … with you. Permanently. Again.”

Julie sighs, pulling herself a little further up the bed, “Well, yeah. He’s a friend.”

“That’s not what I’m hearin’.”

“You hear what people want you to hear,” Julie’s grip on the phone tightens, pressing her cheek more firmly against it to push it onto the thick recesses of Matt’s mind. “Like I said, he’s a friend.”

There’s a pause on his end. She hears his feet shuffling on the floor, the sound of movement as a door closes behind him. Matt seems to pace, breathing the only thing evident in the prison he’s put himself into. Or the prison _she’s_ locked him into. “You said you’d wait for me.”

She closes her eyes, bites her lip and tries to force out a strong “Matt –” 

“You said you’d wait for me,” he pushes out, voice layering onto hers, louder, more dominant; very unlike the Matt Saracen she keeps locked up in her head. Matt’s always been quiet, patient, the sort of jittery type of guy who won’t say what he wants in fear of losing her or causing another rift between them. He’s not as hostile as he was in high school; he’s started a habit of turning a blind eye instead of confronting something, like the Swede issue, head-on. “Then, when you needed it, I waited for you.” His voice falters, much like she expected, and she closes her eyes at his tone, the implications of his words, the way her heart sort of sinks and sort of flutters at the same time. It’s like burning and drowning. “I’m – I’m waiting for you, Julie.”

She releases a breath she knows he’ll take as frustration. Everything between them has become misread to the point of no return. They’ve reached a dead end, she realises, and she tries to keep her voice hushed as she can hear the movement of Tim downstairs cease in volume. Not on purpose, she thinks, as Tim’s one for granting her privacy when she needs it. “Matt, I should never have asked that. We’ve both changed.”

“But we can still make it work,” Matt changes ears, and she can hear his fingers tapping against something; a window still, a table, the phone itself. Desperation fills his voice and he sounds out of breath, like he’s done suicides for her father, run up and down the bleaches because Landry Clarke threw a punch at some guy named Chip. “We can make it work because we love each other.”

Julie pulls at the bed cover, sliding the heel of her foot up and down her ankle.

“Julie” is abrupt, like a question framed as a statement, and this is Matt trying to hold on. She feels herself peeling his hands off the door they’re floating on in an ocean filled with death and end.

“It’s been a long time, Matt,” she sighs, eyes closed, hand gripped tightly against the phone. Her ear hums lightly at the pressure she’s placing on the phone. “People change; we move on.”

“You moved on, you mean.”

She shrugs, breathing out “I wouldn’t say that.” But then again, she would. Tim’s not one for definitions and Julie’s starting to adapt to that. It makes things less dense, less heavy; nothing’s really coating them down besides time.

“But you did,” Matt breathes out, that tapping fades into the background as it’s only him and her, the shuffles of Tim downstairs become non-existent. “With Tim Riggins.”

She shuffles on the bed, pulling herself towards the headboard, resting her back against the pillows propped up sloppily thanks to Tim. “We are friends, Matt.”

“Is that why he’s been in New York for months?” Matt’s spitting out words now, voice getting higher, underlying messages nastier. He’s always been able to cut her the deepest with words unsaid. She bites her lip as she tries to ride it out, put up a mental shield to stop him from getting in; she’s been so good blocking everything hurtful out so far. “Lyla Garrity’s been crying over him ever since he left.”

“That isn’t my fault.”

Matt sighs, “I’m just sayin’.”

“And I’m correcting,” she runs her fingers through her bangs, “there’s nothing there, okay? Tim’s here because he needed a friend and it’s nice to have friends, sometimes. Places can get lonely.”

“I said I’d visit.”

She blinks, rests her head against the headboard. “I know.”

“You don’t want me to.”

“I know.”

“And you’ve stopped waiting.”

“I guess.”

“I don’t think I could stop.” Matt stays on the line, breathing soft and even, minor shuffling in the background; she hears the click and with the phone still pressed to her ear, as if he’s still there, that pain so evident in his voice that it leaks through the states and phone lines, she tells herself she won’t cry. 

Tim summons himself up, taking the stairs lazily, with heavy steps, as if unsure whether to approach. She pulls the phone away from her ear, slapping it heavily against the bed. She feels weighted, like lead, and Tim sits on the edge of the bed, hand crawling and stopping near her leg. “Everything okay?”

Julie gives him a sloppy shrug, eyes downcast, hands curling in her lap as she pulls her legs up, knees bent sharply. She feels too pointed, suddenly, and she tries to pull away from Tim before he can get hurt just like Matt.

“Jules …” he shifts, sliding on the bed as he pulls himself to sit by her knees. He places a hand over one, curling as if he’s trying to melt their skin together like he always does, and she feels his thumb caress her skin. “It’ll be okay.”

She shakes her head, feeling the tears burn in her throat as she blinks a little too hard, one falling straight through the air in a cliff dive to her crossed arms. “No, it’s not.” Julie pulls her knees closer to her, Tim’s hand sliding down her leg to curl around her ankle as she leans her head against her knees, bangs pressing tightly between her forehead and the bone like a flower in Aunt Shelly’s book. “Matt’s hurting and it’s all my fault.”

The sheets rustle as Tim moves to sit beside her, hand on her shoulder, running back and forth lightly. He tries to duck his head to see her, and she’s thankful for her bangs, keeping her eyes out of sight. 

Tim’s always been one to defy her logic.

Brushing fingers through her hair, he circles her ear before filtering through the loose hair of her bangs. “Jules,” he’s leaning close to her, voice soft, fingers working through her hair as his other hand palms her leg, thumb moving in an effort of comfort. “You can’t blame yourself for Matt Saracen,” the name sounds weird against Tim’s voice, having him never put the two words together, and she pauses, fingers flexing near her knees as Tim moves his fingers to her scalp. “Matt’s gonna be hurtin’ for a while. He’s a guy who hurts,” she feels him shrug through his fingers, “and you can’t blame yourself for him.”

Julie presses her cheek to her knee, keeping her eyes on Tim’s chest as she faces him, “I told him I’d wait for him.”

“People say a lot of things they mean that don’t work out in the end,” he tries to duck his head into her eyesight; she focuses on a lower point on the bed. “Matt’s just gotta realise that the past is the past and no matter how much you love someone that sometimes the best thing to do is to let them go.”

“It’s hard,” she says, pressing her eyes closed as more tears cling to her lashes and drag down her cheeks. 

Tim’s fingers in her hair skim to her cheek, running his blunt fingernails up and down slowly, catching stray tears, “That’s why you’ve got me.” She rolls her eyes, and she hears him smile, an airy chuckle accompanied with it, as his hand moves back into her hair, sifting through it all the way to her back before starting at the beginning again.

She stays quiet for a moment, relishing in the feel of his fingers in her hair and the warm palm on her ankle. Tim’s smile fades away, mouth in a line as she feels him study her. She lifts her eyes to him, watching him as his eyes take in her face, tracing over her skin as though it were his hands. Julie sniffs, trying “You say all the right things” to break the tension, that peaceful swelling in her stomach that replaces the usual lead. Uncurling her arms and pressing the back of her hand against her nose, her eyes flutter down to his neck, “How do you know all this stuff?”

Tim shrugs, a smile spreads over his mouth as his fingers wrap her hair loosely, “Hallmark channel.”

*

Tim’s blankets are a lump at the side of the couch.

Walking towards it, she picks up the blankets, separating them the best she can and tosses one onto the couch while she attempts to fold the other. Pressing the material to her chest, her gaze flitters down to what they were thrown over, causing them to appear in an unnatural hump for such thin things.

The cardboard box with Martha’s intercepted smiley face penned on the side is still there.

Julie kicks the cardboard box, another dent pushing against its side, and she lets her fingers run over the bent edges. Layers of tape keep the flaps together, and all the corners that are torn and look eaten by rodents are wrapped with grey tape and the transparent kind.

He still hasn’t opened it.

*

She sits on the kitchen table and watches him move things around. Apparently the living room has shifted since last night.

Swinging her legs, Julie closes her eyes and summons that Tyra Collette invincibility. “You’re distant,” she states, as questions get her nowhere besides a town frizzling with frustration with him. She’s tired of skirting the state line from this town to the next.

He shrugs, huffing as the chair she was told was identical to the leather one in _Friends_ refuses to shift into it’s correct spot. She thinks he’s seeing things. Tim rubs his palms against his knees before straightening and coming to stand between her legs, hands sliding from her knees to her thighs, “Doesn’t seem like it.”

She rolls her eyes, “I don’t mean literally.” Placing her hands on his arms, she curls her fingers lightly around them, closing her eyes, summoning that that courage stays with her throughout this. She finds that squeezing his arms may imprint what she’s trying to say into his brain, “You’re holding back.”

He cocks his eyebrow, “What are you on, Julie Taylor?” She sighs, licking her lips, as Tim’s never on the same wavelength as her when she needs him to be. Less words shared between them on heavy topics, the better. He cracks a grin a few seconds later, trying to make light of the situation.

Sliding her hands down his arms, she pulls at his fingers before letting them go completely. She’s used to abandoning these matters and having freedom to walk whichever way she wants. With Tim, he boxes her in. The jury’s still out on whether that’s a good thing. Licking her lips, she sighs, hands pressing against his shoulders, “You’re distant and I don’t like it. You can tell me, Tim.”

He looks down, hands tapping against her thighs. She waits it out, counting the presses of his fingers before they slow into an erratic rhythm. He’s thinking, a crease between his brows and his lips are sort of puckered out, eyes on the wooden panels beneath them. “When I was talkin’ to Billy that night,” he pauses, speaking to the floor, fingers stilled as they morph into a light pressure against her thighs, “he wants me to come home. He thinks it’s time I go back to Dillon.”

Julie furrows her brows, hands clenching around his shoulders absently as she tries to grasp this, “You’re going?”

He shrugs, looking up at her. It’s a slow ascend that has her hands sliding down his arms to press against his elbow. “I’ve interrupted your life so much, Jules.” Tim shakes his head, looks off to the staircase, and she presses her palms forcefully against his shoulders, “Having me as a part of it, livin’ here, I can’t see it.”

She pulls her brows together, watching him look around the apartment, darting glances at her arms or legs or stomach. He never looks up at her. “You can’t,” she hears her voice break, “or you won’t?”

He shrugs, hands sliding to her knees, the heel of his palm waits on air as if he’s not ready to totally let go. She wraps her legs loosely around his waist. Tim swallows, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Tim,” she shakes her head; her fingers press against his shoulders, legs nudging him a little closer to her as she hooks her ankles together and lets them fall against the back of his own legs. “I want you here. New York is great, you know. I’ll be dancing soon and you don’t need to worry about the rent or whatever it is you’re pissing yourself over.” 

His eyebrows draw together, stepping forward without thought and he’s pressed right up against her, fingers flexing on her thighs, “This isn’t my life, Jules.”

“And Dillon is?” she cocks her eyebrow, finding that Taylor anger simmering beneath the surface, and she tries to push it back, drown it some ocean, by pressing her fingers into his shoulders. “Working on cars while you get drunk? You gonna spend your whole life listening to the radio and Buddy Garrity reminiscing about the days where you were a Dillon Panther and it meant something?”

He shrugs, “This isn’t in my destiny.”

Groaning, she rolls her eyes, and places her hands over his, prying them from her legs. “Cut the bullshit, Riggins. You don’t believe in that crap.” She grips his hands, fingers pulling at his, and she holds them in the air, feeling the pads punctuate like a heartbeat against them. Tilting her head, her voice softens, cracking slightly, “What do I have to do to convince you to stay?”

He shrugs, biting his lip and looking away from her, hands limp in hers. Tim settles his eyes on something over her shoulder, and she presses her feet, which she hopes are cold, against his skin to jerk his eyes to hers. It doesn’t work. His fingers press lightly into her hands.

She nods to herself, hands feeling slack in their vice-like grip of his. “You’re leaving,” she states, and he doesn’t have the heart to look at her.

*

When he comes through the door, she attacks.

“What do you want to do today?” she stands, hands on her hips, and she tries to soften the hard angles of her elbows. She’s expecting something, and she knows it’s readable on her face that her plan to make his last few days in New York a highlight of his out-of-Dillion life.

He grins; fingers tap against the envelopes and thin catalogues in his hand as he comes to place them at the kitchen table beside her. “You gotta stop askin’ me that.”

Julie looks away, shrugging her shoulders in a minor defeat as he’s a quicker tool in the shed than what anyone gives him credit for. He comes to stand before her, arms light on her hips; she doesn’t look up at him, instead focusing her gaze on her bare feet and his stained cowboy boots. 

“What do you want to do today?”

Biting the inside of her lip, Julie inhales, her hands coming to rest at his elbows, “Football?”

Tim cocks his head to the side, that stupid grin in place, and she blushes at his amusement. “Really?”

She shrugs, “Fresh air is good for you?”

Pressing his mouth into a line, Tim lifts her up onto the kitchen table, “That it is.”

*

Julie thinks the park has started to grow on her days too late. His smile brightens when he tosses the worn football in the air and catches it with ease. “You got me a football,” he grins, spinning so he’s walking backwards slowly. 

She shrugs, “I like buying dogs new toys.” Flicking her hand, she rests the backs of her palms against her hips as she looks around the park, the sun belting down as she wishes she’d had the sense – like him – to bring her sunglasses. He’s still stuck in his Aviator phase, thinking they’re cool or something. 

Tim shrugs, “Something we have in common there, Taylor,” he tosses her the football, which she allows to hit her in the shoulder. “The whole point to passing is for you to catch it.”

“I wasn’t ready,” she pulls her eyebrows together, bending down and picking up the football. She spins it lightly in her hands as he just grins.

“You’re not supposed to. Be on constant alert, Taylor. Did Powderpuff tell you nothing?”

She rolls her eyes, tosses him the football and wrings her hands together; the sleeves of her white and red striped jacket pull over her fingers. “I was picked third. So, yeah, it did.”

His mouth slants, shrugging, as he passes it back. “Stripes,” his lips pull at it and she sees her reflection, all timid, blurred in his Aviator glasses, “I would’ve picked you.”

She laughs, fingers curling instinctively around the football as he releases it, “Yeah. If you’re head wasn’t so full of Lyla Garrity and her Godly charm.” She tosses it a little hard, the loose flow of her arms forming an arc from her hips to somewhere on her chest causes him to smile at the small impact of the force she pushed against the ball. “Then, maybe,” she feels like she owes him this little bit, “I’d believe you.” 

Tim inhales, spins the football in his hands before tossing it back to her, “I was an idiot in high school.” She scoffs, and he nods, grinning, as if coming to terms with the facts she presents in a single huff of _you’re kidding?_ “I’m not sayin’ anythin’ else. You may be Mrs Coach’s daughter, but it don’t mean you’re her.”

“Doesn’t,” she flips the football before throwing it back, the force behind it lighter than the previous pass.

Tim shrugs, “Same thing.”

She cocks an eyebrow, “No, it’s not. And you wouldn’t have picked me. There was that whole Matt thing and … Lyla was a constant in your life, so …” She drifts off, feeling her hands turning the football over as Tim waits, patience flowing off of him as she picks up her leg and tries to toss it at him like a Dillon Panther. “Just don’t be doing me any favours by saying shit like that.” He catches it, like she knew he would, and he grins, like he’s proud or something, or maybe he’s not listening to her, before he tosses her the ball like she’s too fragile to be worthy of a Dillon Panther football pass. She catches the football, stumbling a little, and maybe that monologue was right. She sighs, tossing it back, “You bullshit too much.”

“You talk too much,” he smiles, like it’s a joke, and she rolls her eyes as he spins the ball before pausing it, hands gripping it hard between his palms, fingers curling over the top of it as it looks like an overlarge egg in his hands. “I think it’s about time we knock the wind out of ya, Taylor. Give you a reason to have a real shower.”

She rolls her eyes, watches him pass her the ball and grin when she catches it with a clap of her hands, “Whatever you’re up to, I’m not doing it. I’ll kick you out.”

“You won’t,” he grins, and he moves quickly, arms encircling her waist and she feels herself lose her breath as she makes contact with the hard ground. “Can’t kick me out if you can’t move,” Tim hovers over her, arms on either side of her shoulders and his legs wrap around hers like string.

Julie hugs the football closer to her, trying to pull her elbows in as Tim’s arms shuffle closer, “This is a public place, Tim.”

“Don’t worry me,” he shrugs, mouth landing on her neck to peck sound kisses against. He makes a show, pokes his tongue out at random spots, chuckles to himself as she sighs, rolling her eyes, trying to kick his feet away. 

“Doesn’t,” she shuffles as he nips at her ear, grinning as he pushes his tongue out. He’s constantly giving her cause to roll her eyes. 

He pulls back, nose barely touching hers; at moments, he lightly pushes it against hers, and he’s wearing this proud grin on his face as he pulls back, eyes scanning over her. “And it shouldn’t worry you,” he shifts, hands shuffling closer to her, the heel of his palm ghosting over the top of her shoulder. “This ain’t Dillon. Live a little, Taylor. Live large in the Big Apple or whatever fruit this place is.”

She narrows his eyes as he leans forward, pressing his lips to hers. The resolve she tries to build scatters as she forgets the football pressing between their chests and curves her palms around his cheeks, fingers barely hitting his hair.

Any opportunity he has to speak against her lips, he takes like a thirsty man devoid of water, “Now I wish Powderpuff went something like this.” Shit-eating grin is just a bonus.

*

When Tim’s out shopping for god-knows-what, Julie calls Tyra. It’s by the latter’s request – Tim likes to pick up the other phone and make comments that start up wars between the two. To save her eardrum, Julie calls when Tim’s out, and that’s becoming quite often.

Tyra sighs on her end, covering the mouthpiece with her hand as she yells at her roommate she claims is a hippie stuck in the wrong time zone for the fifth time. “Sorry about that. _Flower_ insists to speak like she’s the only goddamn person on the planet.” Julie doesn’t understand why Tyra switched rooms with several people to end up at a dead end with a girl who insists that Big Bird is actually the reason why the sun is so yellow. “Anyway, Landry hasn’t stopped calling me. He’s like bloody Seth Cohen.”

Julie laughs, “Yeah? What’s it about this time? And, please,” she moves to the fridge, opening the door as it unsticks and looks around the shelves for something she can’t put her finger on. “spare me the pornographic details.”

Tyra scoffs, “It’s about Matt,” her voice deflates. “I wasn’t gonna tell you, but …”

Julie straightens, the hand curled around the fridge door falls against her side, “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine or something. It’s just – he’s been down. Landry’s affected by it, you know, because they’re tied at the hip.” Tyra breathes; the voices in the background pick up, “I was just wondering if you were okay.”

Julie nods, “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay,” Tyra’s voice picks up as the frustration she tries to block from her voice tramples as she clicks her teeth loudly, “make sure you call me if you ever want to talk.”

She nods, closing the fridge with a light smack and she twirls on the spot, looking at the blank television. “Thanks Tyra.”

“And, just a heads up,” she seems to growl, a movement on her side as her voice hushes, “when I’m in prison for killing Powder, bake me a cake with a nail file?”

*

_Spice World_ inspires an impromptu lets-get-naked rendezvous. Tim’s suggestion, not hers.

“We should try doing this to Spice Girls one day,” he laughs against her mouth, hands hot against her sides as she keeps her palms curled around his shoulders, holding her up. Tim tangles his feet in the sheets, hers along with it, and she’s trapped as his hands push on her bare lower back, bringing their lower bodies together.

His hands spread her, trailing over the back of her legs to her back and pushes her on him. She gasps, mouth pausing on his moving one as she grins slowly, “Ruin my childhood, Tim.”

“With pleasure,” he grins, moving his hips in a way that has her mouth open against his, eyes closed, and she lets out a groan as he keeps shifting below her. 

His mouth is heavy on hers, hands sliding up her back as she finds a rhythm he picks up and he’s traded Sporty-Spice-is-hotter-than-Beckham-Spice for his usual Tim-Riggins-Talking-Dirty grin as he grounds into her, her knees pressing hard against the sheets. He breaks it off, flipping them; their feet wrapped in a tight cocoon that leaves their legs at an odd angle as he kisses her neck and keeps shifting. 

She wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and she moves her hips with his until she feels herself coming apart with tiny stars and Tim’s shit-eating grin imprinting against the side of her breast as he rocks against her, riding it out. 

Breathing heavy in her ear, he pulls himself half over her, head resting on the pillow as his hand runs over the slope of her nose. “Sporty is hotter than Posh.”

Julie tries to catch her breath, toes flexing against his ankle, “I think the manager is hotter than all of them combined.”

He slings his arm under her breasts, hand finding her elbow at an awkward bend of his wrist, and he kisses her shoulder. “I was gonna say you were hotter than all the Spices combined, but after that … I’ll have to reconsider.”

Julie mock gasps, hand clutching at his arm, “I take it back!”

“You can’t. Once it’s out there, it’s out there.” He presses his lips together, running a finger along her shoulder, “You’ll just have to come second-best to Sporty.”

She laughs, shaking her head, “I think I can come up with something that’ll make me number one.”

He raises his eyebrows, a pull at his lip as he shuffles into the blankets, becoming comfortable. “Really?”

Julie nods, her cheeks shifting to support a grin as she wriggles from beneath his arm and presses her lips to his neck. Tim chuckles, and she hushes him, pressing kisses, open-mouthed and wet, poking her tongue out against him in a mimic of what he does, and she descends slowly down his chest. She passes his bellybutton when she can sense that amused grin fade from his face.

“I’m not anywhere else,” she says, pressing the words into his skin, “so don’t use that as a cop-out because you’re a pussy.” He arches slightly, stomach tense underneath her mouth at her use of language; she likes taking him by surprise whenever she can.

“Jules –”

Resting her chin against his skin, her fingers run up and down his thighs, “I’m doing this because I want to, not because I’m indebted. So shut up or I’ll bite it off.” She shifts down, waiting for that protest, the slide of his hips away from her. 

When she kisses him with a light peck he tenses, throat working to form some words of protest, make up an excuse for her to not do this, to not allow her to damage this vision of her he must have if he’s so persistent in not having this. He’s hard, and she hasn’t done this in a while, doesn’t exactly like doing it, but it’s Tim and the way he shuffles slightly beneath her, hands gripping the sheets and with his soft panting that he fails to cover up as it morphs into a humming growl, she figures it’s worth the discomfort she feels until she works up a rhythm. 

She starts transitioning into all those things Tyra used to rattle off about, sort of hinting in a subtle way the things Tim likes as it’s been embedded into her – even with Landry – and Julie’s so glad for the slips as Tim relaxes, for a moment, before she shifts into what she guesses is his role when he’s here, mouth wet and hot and tongue pushing against her. Her fingers skim and push, trying to coax him with something that isn’t Tyra Collette and high school. She mimics him in ways, dragging her tongue over him with that shit-eating grin she knows the feeling of when imprinted onto flesh.

It’s different, like he said, but when he says her name in this croaked voice, all defenceless and at her mercy, she wishes she had done it a while ago.

*

Tim shuffles out of the bed sluggishly, legs kicking her awake as she hears him pad down the stairs and flick on the kitchen light. He’s clicking at her loud phone, the buttons being pressed rapidly due to a memorised number, and she’ll assure herself that she’s not listening in because Tim sometimes talks as loud as her mother.

“Hey,” he says, and she shuffles in the bed, wrapping the sheets around her as she feels a little too bare for this conversation. She doesn’t think it’s Billy as his voice sort of softens on the second “Hey,” elaborating it with an amused sounding “you sound tired.”

She tries to press her face into the pillow to muffle out his words. “Yeah, I got it.” Julie rolls onto her back, trying to count the vague ceiling shadows in an attempt to drown out Tim’s late-night booty call. “It wasn’t necessary. I already got one. Yeah, Jules split with me.”

Tim pulls a stool from the kitchen table, the scrape carrying up the stairs and echoes loudly, instead of softly, in her ears. “I dunno, it’s pretty serious. Yeah, I am pretty serious,” he speaks in pauses, a light frustration coating his tone as he sighs. “I think I’m coming to Dillon, but I dunno when, so don’t ask. I know Billy’s been with ya.”

He can’t seem to sit still as the stool scrapes slightly and he’s padding around soundly, “Look, I thought we already spoke about this before either of us did anything. I waited until it was the end. I didn’t piss off to New York when we were on a break.” Tim pauses here, a sigh, and his voice is softer, lower, a hum of vibrations that cause that dreaded lead to resurface and take home in her stomach, “I thought it was over, Lyla.”

The movements downstairs halt, “Yeah, I am too. And yeah, I pretty much am.”

There’s silence, and Julie twists, toes picking at the sheets as Tim stays noiseless for some time. “See ya” clicks the phone off.

Tim doesn’t come up for a few hours.

*

Tim finds her on her bedroom floor, Matt’s shirt gripped tightly in her hands. He comes to sit behind her, like he always seems to be doing, and envelopes her within his legs as his arms slide around her stomach and his chin takes place on her shoulder. “Everythin’ okay?”

Julie nods, breathing in deeply as she scrunches the shirt into a thick ball, “Yeah,” she pushes it to the side, trying to shove it underneath her bed for the monsters and dust bunnies to devour. “Just cleaning.”

“It’s not spring yet,” Tim grins, pressing his lips to the side of her neck.

She rolls her eyes, “I know. We’re watching a movie tonight, and I need to find it,” she buries her hands inside a cardboard box she keeps Dillon in. It’s caving in on itself, with tapes and letters and some odd knickknacks from the house. 

Tim tries to peek over her shoulder, “You’ve decided on a movie you can’t find?”

“I know it’s in here,” Julie bites her lip, hands gripping onto letters with torn envelopes and placing them on a sloppy pile beside her. “I just don’t remember which box.”

“Maybe you don’t have it?”

“You pulled it out a while ago,” her fingers pull at tapes with her mother’s scribble, things about Gracie and messages they felt the need to send her from Austin. 

Tim sighs, flattening his hands on her stomach as Julie reaches the base of the box and all she’s been able to find are envelopes, Landry Clarke’s home videos on how to successfully conform to the big city, and Tyra’s post-it notes of reminders and inspirational quotes to help her survive. He pulls his hands away, running his fingers through her hair as he draws it to a side, kissing her neck, up and down and in a random pattern. It’s like fingers tracing pictures on her back. “That spice movie is downstairs on the table.”

Shifting so she can see him, he’s pulled back, shit-eating grin in place, and she flicks his ear.

*

“You have two more weeks left and you want to go to a party?” she places her hands on her hips, eyebrows pulled together, as Tim’s making himself a sandwich. He’s using half of her freshly bought loaf. “Do you need to eat half the bread?”

He grins, layering on the butter thickly as he flickers through several pieces, “Yeah, let’s go. It’ll be fun; give you a chance to become friends with Carla or something.”

Julie finds herself biting her tongue, pausing, blinking to hide the irritation that’s forming a firm grip on her tone. “Carla?” 

Tim doesn’t look up from layering jam on his bread. It’s like a blanket of thick snow; she can see the mountains of jam from the edge of the stairs. “Yeah, third floor, nice. We spoke a couple of times.”

She nods to herself as she looks to the side, bringing her arms to cross over her chest. Her hands curl into loose fists as she feels her energy disintegrate. “Well, you have a nice time, Tim.”

He laughs, “Why are you being like this? She wants you over. She invited us.” He drags his finger along the flat surface of the knife, licking the jam latched onto it, and drops the cutlery into the sink. He’s back at the counter, another knife, sharper, in hand as he cuts his sandwich into a shape. “Do I need to untwist your panties?” 

She glares, “There’s no need for untwisting. I just didn’t know when you two became so buddy-buddy.”

Tim draws his tongue over his bottom lip and finishes bisecting his bread before carrying the knife to the sink to join the blunter one. He moves to the fridge, back to her, and speaks into it, like it’ll absorb his words and not simply bounce them off to hit her sharply in the gut. “When we had that thing,” he shrugs, though the movement is jarred by his hunched figure, “I just needed to speak with someone.” He grabs the carton of milk out, leaving the door open as he opens a cupboard for a glass, “Is that so bad?”

Julie bites her lip, “No,” she shakes her head, “it’s not. But she’s leggy!” She throws her palm out, curling her fingers in as she points at him. “She’s leggy and gorgeous and a brunette.” She bites her tongue when she wants to reference his tastes and how he clings and changes with that particular hair colour.

New starts don’t happen when the past is still held onto. 

Breathing in, she drops her arm to her side, shrugging, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s important to you. So let’s go to some girl’s place where you’ll end up in the bedroom doing god-knows-what while Fred or that dude with the parrot fetish chats me up.” 

Tim’s grinning, moving towards her as he settles his plate with a small tower of bread cut into big triangles onto the table in front of the couch. He stands in front of her, placing his arms in the back pockets of her jeans and pulling her closer to him, “I like you when you’re psychotic.” 

She rolls her eyes, “It’s not psychotic. It’s facts. Pure fact.” Julie’s hands find his waist, using it as a balance as she tries to lean away from him to prove her point. She thinks distance may do that, as being too close to Tim makes her think stupid things and act upon them. “Tim, she is a leggy brunette with tight jeans and did I mention the legs that go for miles? I have short legs and blonde hair with the same hairstyle I had in high school. I didn’t walk out of some Vogue catalogue.”

Tim nods, pursing his lips, pulling her slightly leaning figure closer to him, “Definitely delusional.” 

She rolls her eyes, planting her hands on his chest, pushing herself away, “Tim, I’m being serious.”

“Seriously delusional,” he creases his brows, moving a hand to settle between her shoulder blades to pull her against him. She turns her cheek into his chest, sliding her arms from being pressed between their bodies and wrapping them loosely around his waist. “She’s just some girl I talk to on occasion.”

“And Fred’s just some guy who leaves bananas on my doorstep,” she turns into his chest, pressing her mouth into the fabric of his shirt as his hand moves to her lower back and pulls circles with her shirt.

“Jules,” he moves his mouth to her forehead, pushing hot air onto her skin and she stills, eyes closed as she wraps her arms tighter around his back. “You’re an idiot. I like short, blonde idiots with really long hair who wear stripes every day.”

Opening her eyes, she sways a little on the spot, pulling her with him as he presses a kiss to her hairline. She feels his chin rest on the top of her head and his hands slowly running up and down her back. “I’m not an idiot,” she tries to pull a grin, “you’re the idiot.”

He laughs, “I’m not anywhere else.” Adjusting his arms, he wraps her tighter in the cocoon and pulls her into a light sway when she tries to still. Pressing a kiss into her hair, she feels his breath tickle the strands and her scalp, “I’m an idiot if you’re an idiot.”

Julie rolls her eyes, “You don’t win any points for butchering a quote from a movie.”

He shrugs, a smile pressed into her hair, “Had to try.”

*

“Living to the legend, Stripes?” Tim grins, arms wrapping around her waist as he presses kisses into her neck. Her dress is red with white stripes running in a horizontal direction. It was a dress Tyra had bought her when she bothered to come to New York with the little money she had from working at Applebees and another diner neither of them can recall the name of.

She rolls her eyes, pushing him away as she tries to clip her earrings on. Mom sent her hoop earrings she’s always wanted ever since graduation a couple of days ago, and she figures, despite the gnawing in her stomach, that this occasion calls for them to be worn. “Tim,” she turns to look at him, pressing a smile to her lips. Tapping his cheek, she gives him a quick kiss on the nose, “Shut up.”

He grins, hands settling on her hips as she pulls some lip gloss from a drawer. “You know, you look good as you are.”

She shrugs, “I like aiming high.”

Tim shakes his head, fingers pressing an uneven rhythm into her hips, “You’re delusional. I’m not telling you what you wanna hear.”

“I don’t want to hear anything,” she says, pushing the lip gloss stick against her lips before screwing on the cap. “You ready to go?” She turns around, his hands hovering over her hips as she shifts before landing on them again. 

“I was born ready.”

She rolls her eyes as he grabs her hand and leads her down the stairs, her boots thudding against them. He grabs her purse from the kitchen table and pockets the apartment keys in his jeans.

He holds her hand all the way to the third floor, and even inside the apartment, she’s shocked to still feel the warmth of his fingers pressing into the back of her hand still there.

So she underestimates him. She’s not used to this.

Stopping, she surveys the room, familiar faces hunched in their groups as the apartment is foreign to her. She wonders if Tim feels out of his element here. Feeling the press of his lips ghost over the shell of her ear, he almost yells “I’m going to go make the rounds” into her ear before his hand slips from hers like water. Tim’s made the impact she’s still trying to make on these people.

Furrowing her brows, she moves in the opposite direction, examining the walls of the apartment before she finds Martha sitting on a single chair with a glass in her hand. There’s a little umbrella she’s started to cherish and it’s become accustomed to see Martha with one somewhere on her person. “Howdy,” she rolls her eyes, and pats the edge of the armchair. 

Julie sits on it, pushing her legs together and pulling at the hem of her dress, “Enjoying it so far?” 

Martha shrugs, “Sort of like Fred’s – except there’s a keg somewhere. I’m getting vibrations.” Julie rolls her eyes as Martha takes a sip of her drink, “McArms here?”

“You’re still not over that?”

She shakes her head, “No. I like to appreciate.”

“Do you know Carla?”

Martha laughs, “She’s okay.”

Julie nods; hands curling over her knees as she watches the small throng of people seem to expand in front of her very eyes. She’s shifting into high school mode again and anytime soon Riley’s going to appear, plastic cups filled to the brim gripped between his hands, and Tim’s coming to the rescue.

Martha places a hand on Julie’s arm, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Julie nods.

*

Twenty minutes and a broken umbrella later, Tim finds her, glass in his hand and a grin on his face. He’s glowing, and this pulls a small smile across her lips.

“Hey,” he says, standing before her, hands sort of on his hips as she pulls her dress down as if it’s been cut to mid-thigh. Throwing a hand over his shoulder, he grins at her, “Wanna dance?”

“Knock yourself out,” Martha says from around the broken umbrella. She slaps Julie’s arm and grabs her purse as Julie pushes herself off the armchair. “Don’t do anything I’d do,” she calls out as Tim guides Julie into the middle of the living room. 

Some people are dancing like it’s high school, and she stands there, looking over her shoulder, wondering what’s going on through Tim’s head. The glass in his hand has vanished as he steps closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulls her to him. “Having fun?”

She shrugs, wrapping her arms around his neck, “Yeah, I guess.” Her eyes are still focussed on the others; attention being drawn to the kitchen as loud bouts of laughter elicit from there. “You?”

“Am now,” he grins, and she rolls her eyes when she dares him a glance. Tim sighs, his shoulders move as if the very movement lifted some sort of weight from his shoulders, “You okay?”

She nods, swallowing, “Yeah. Am now,” she grins, and Tim ducks his head. “I’m sorry for going all high school girl on you.”

He shrugs his shoulders, “Feel free to anytime.” She feels his fingers flex, fingertips grabbing onto the loose fabric of her dress, “Preferably with a uniform.”

Julie slaps his shoulder, pulling herself to him as she rests her cheek on his chest and wraps her arms around his waist. “You’re a pig.”

He rests his cheek on her hair, pressing a kiss into it, “Whatever you say, Stripes.”

Drawing her eyebrows together, she purses her lips, even though he can’t exactly see her face, and shifts against his shirt, “This isn’t even a Spice Girls song.”

Tim rubs his palm in circles on her back, swaying with her as a fast-tempo song plays again. Julie stops herself from saying _Speak of the devil_ as Tim seems to grip her a little tighter. He seems to laugh, air moving across her scalp the first time that night in the heated apartment, and he presses his lips to her hair, “It’s fated.”

“Destiny is bullshit,” grinning, she looks up at him, rolling her eyes dramatically as she presses her palms flat onto his back. Running a palm up and down his back, she feels his shirt follow, wrinkling slightly as it pulls out from the waistband of his jeans that they were barely tucked into. She slides her hand onto his back, feeling his hot skin burning her palm.

He presses his mouth to hers, mumbling a ticklish “You’re finally learning” with that shit-eating smile that feels so great against her lips. 

*

Julie decides that it’s best to let go of the past to accept the present. Tim catches her in her room, wrapping a shirt with wrapping paper supporting Christmas. “What’s that?” he comes to sit behind her, legs enveloping her. He pulls himself to her until there’s no room between his chest and her back, and he leans his chin on her shoulder, arms around her middle, as he watches her yank at tape and stick down the paper neatly.

“Matt’s shirt,” she says, ripping at tape and applying a third layer to a seam. She figures being blunt is the best way to go, and with Tim stiffening, arms moving a bit tighter around her stomach, she thinks that maybe it was a good choice. “I thought it was about time he had it back.”

“I doubt he misses it,” he turns his head, hot air pushes against her neck, and his hand fiddles with her ponytail. He shrugs, shifting to watch her press tape against the package, “It’s just a shirt.”

She shakes her head, “It’s a piece of him that I can’t keep anymore. For reasons hopefully you’re aware of.”

He grins, pressing a kiss to her cheek, “Are you callin’ me oblivious?”

Julie shrugs, his chin fitting back on her shoulder, “Maybe. You never know, Tim. I could be simply insinuating something.”

“Like a bare-all rendezvous on the stairs?”

She rolls her eyes, “Sure. I’ll leave you and whatever you need to get off alone for a few hours.”

“So you’re going to mail Matt his shirt,” Tim nods as he tries to process this. He’s trying to see her underlying message; looking at him from the corner of her eye, his brows are furrowed as he tries to figure out exactly what she’s saying to Matt Saracen and – most likely – him. “Without a card.”

She nods, “Pretty much,” she rips at tape again, pressing it crookedly across the Christmas paper. “Words will only hurt him further and I can’t give him more reason to hate me or cling on.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Jules,” he says quietly, and she doesn’t believe him as his fingers start kneading at her stomach. “No one could,” he murmurs, and she pauses in her taping, pressing a finger hard into the package. 

“You think it’s secure enough?”

Tim laughs, “Hell yeah. That baby’s not gonna be opened within the next decade.”

*

The Doomsday Clock is ticking and Tim’s time is almost up.

He tells her to get dressed in something fancy as he throws on jeans and a green dress shirt. He sits on the kitchen table, whistling, throwing out “Hurry up” and “Get your move on” at random intervals as he’s paying for something expensive and she’s going to protest until the bill arrives.

Hand on the rail, she rolls her eyes as he shouts again, focus on something in the distance, and she moves down the stairs, brown boots thumping against the stairs. This catches his attention; she feels his eyes survey her green dress. “We’re quite a pair,” he grins, whistling low as she shakes her head, feeling a blush scrape against her cheeks. He jumps off the table and meets her at the last one, taking her hand and pulling her down. “You look good in green.”

“We’re going, Tim. No stair rendezvous tonight. Or ever,” she grins, grabbing her purse from the couch. 

Tim pouts, pulling her along with him, “Well, you’ll like this place. And _then_ you’ll be reconsidering your stance on that.”

Julie rolls her eyes, “Sure.”

*

Tim takes her to McDonald’s.

“You’re a cheap date,” she laughs as he holds the door open for her, bowing, “and we’ve never eaten at McDonald’s. I thought Starbucks was our place.”

He stands behind her, hands on her hips as he urges her forward to the counter, “Yeah, well, this would’ve been our second place. Besides, it was closer, and you’re wearing ridiculous shoes.”

“They’re not ridiculous,” she curls her hands around the edge of the front desk, looking up at the menu as Tim’s hot against her back.

He eyes her legs for the seventh time that night and murmurs “Definitely not” into her hair.

“I’ll have a Happy Meal, thanks,” Julie grins, as Tim orders something like a Big Mac with extra lettuce. He pays, flicking out his hand with a couple of notes before she has the chance to click her purse open. 

Taking their food, he guides her to a corner near a window looking out at the street. “This is our thing,” he places her meal in front of her, and grins at the little carton it comes in. “Watching people outside the window. This is ours.” He unwraps his burger as she opens the folds of her box, “A Happy Meal?”

“Easier to order, plus I get a drink and chips.”

He rolls his eyes.

*

They end up back home after a few hours of People Watching, as Tim has dubbed it.

Julie wraps her arms around his neck, pulling herself to press against him, cheek nestling into the scratchy fabric of his green dinner shirt. His hands slide down her dress to meet at the small of her back, chin resting on the top of her head. “What’s this for?”

She blinks, shrugging, “This is your last night in New York.” 

He nods, lips press against her hair, “Yeah,” he settles his chin back, slightly digging into her scalp, “it is.”

“You want to do anything?”

He shakes his head, “Already doin’ it.” He grins when she looks up at him, and she rolls her eyes. Shit-eating grin from Texas slots into place, and she thinks he’s ready, prepared, for the sudden shift in scenery for tomorrow. 

“Well,” she stretches, pressing against the tips of her toes in her shoes, “I’m going to use the bath.” She kisses his chin, keeps her eyes on the tip of his nose, “Since you say it never gets used.”

He grins, palms rubbing up and down, pulling her dress with the slight movements, “Good advice, you know.”

Biting her lip, Julie nods, kisses the side of his neck, “You’re not getting the hint.”

“There’s a hint?”

She rolls her eyes, presses her palms to his chest, and her finger traces a button on his shirt. “You are so dense sometimes.”

He grins, “I’ll be down here,” his fingers clench at the fabric of her dress, “watching _Lost_ or something equally ridiculous.”

She nods, fingers pull against the fabric, and she takes a step backward, “Can’t forget those polar bears.”

“Shit, I gotta work out where they came from. I promised Jay.”

“Okay,” she runs her hands down her sides, smoothing out her dress, “I’m going to go.” She points to the stairs and Tim ducks his head, stupid grin on his face.

Julie refuses to acknowledge the potential of him plotting something.

*

Julie sinks into the water, holding her breath and counting to the highest number she can before resurfacing. It’s a game she’s never grown out of. The bath is filled with a thick layer of bubbles due to her squeezing a little too hard on the bottle. 

She can’t hear anything from downstairs – or upstairs – with the door closed, and she sort of wishes she’d left it open, even the tiniest crack, so she could hear him down there, for the last time. She wants to savour it, having another person taking up room in her home. She didn’t realise how much she missed sharing space until Tim showed up on her doorstep with inside jokes and not many words on his lips.

Sinking back into the tub, she can’t hear anything except for the lapping of the bath water due to her movements and wriggling legs. She can never get comfortable in these things.

“Are you tryin’ to drown yourself, Bubbles?” he says, crouched at the side of the tub, and she jumps, blinking the water from her eyes. He dips his hand into the tower of bubbles and blows them at her. They stick mostly to his fingers, like cotton candy, while some of the clumps fall to the bathmat.

She pushes her sticky bangs into her hair, “No,” she blinks, water still slipping into her eyes, “I wasn’t.” She licks her lips and slides further down into the water, stopping as it pushes and pulls against her chin. “What happened to the polar bears?”

He shrugs, hand skidding across the side of the tub, “Got shot.”

“Sawyer is a bastard,” she wiggles her toes, trying to kick some of the bubbles away.

Tim bows his head, fingers working at the buttons of his dress shirt; she watches him with a cocked brow, the water stilling around her as he leaves the shirt hanging on his shoulders. He stands up, hands working at his belt before pulling down his jeans. 

“What are you doing?”

He hooks his thumbs into the waistline of the jeans, pulling them down and stepping out of them as he pulls at his boxers. “What does it look like?” She raises her hands with a shrug, looking comical, she thinks, because there’s a pull at the corner of his lip, and he sighs, grinning as he shrugs off the shirt. Bending down, his hand finds her leg underneath the thick bubbles and slaps it. She pulls herself up, legs pushing to the side, and he steps in, “Taking a hint.”

When he’s in, the water splashes, threatening to tip over the rim, and his back is to her, everything so awkward as she tries to press herself against the slope of the back of the tub as Tim tries to fit his too-long-for-anything legs in. He sits between her legs, back pressed against her front, and he’s slid down, knees bent and protruding through the bubbles. 

He grins, “This is nice.”

“Maybe for you,” she squirms, his hands bolting to her legs as she tries to get comfortable. “I was having a nice time here.”

Tim hums, one of his hands slides up and down her leg in the water, “Is that why you invited me to join you?”

“That was before I realised you’re like a little kid with a rubber duck.”

Tim chuckles, shifting to the side as he leans against her shoulder, stilling his erratic movements and the flicks of his palm that teases the water; she wraps her arms around his chest, resting the side of her head against his dry hair. “This is nice,” he says again, though a little more sober and there’s a lone finger running the length of her thigh. She lets it sink in, the words, his tone, and the watery pressure on her leg.

She presses a kiss into his hair, arms tightening around him, “Yeah,” she breathes, finding herself blinking back that burning sensation she’ll chalk up to the water being in her eyes, “it is.” Pressing her mouth into his shoulder, she mumbles “Do you _have_ to go?” like the teenager she once was. Lives and families never played much of a significant role when it came to being left behind by someone you cared for. She feels selfish, that ridiculous pressure tracing along her spine like his fingers at night, a hard push against her skin so he can touch the bone. 

He pulls himself up, her with him, and his hands cup her knees, squeezing. Looking over his shoulder, she presses her mouth more firmly into the warm skin there, “Yeah,” he says, blinks sluggish like his breathing, “Billy needs me.”

She presses a kiss to his shoulder, nodding, “Okay,” as her hands press firmly against his stomach. Julie doesn’t want to let him go.

“I’d stay –” he watches her, eyes following her slight movements, like the nudge of her nose to his shoulder and the turn of her head as she presses her cheek there. He doesn’t continue from there, lets it drift over the water.

When he doesn’t pick up, she sighs, “But Billy needs you.” After a few breaths, he nods, turning his focus on the other end of the tub. It looks so small with him in it. It feels tiny, especially with his legs bent and his feet propped up against the opposite end, toes barely visible through the bobbing water and bubbles. “I don’t want to make you regret leaving,” she presses closer to him, knees bending to hold him to her, “because he’s your family and when your family needs you, you go.” Lifting her palms from his stomach to press her fingers against his flesh, she sighs, “That’s what my father taught me. Family is everything.”

Tim seems to teeter forward a little more, hair curtaining his face, a move she pulls too frequently when she wants to hide away from something. Flattering her palms, she tries to hug herself to him, give him some reassurance that whatever is going through his mind is okay. “You’re family,” he says, and the slight movements of their fidgeting cause the water to almost swallow it whole. He’s never been so quiet, has always been loud, in presence and vocals. He sets her off kilter every once in a while.

She smiles, presses a kiss to his back before resting her cheek back down. “Sometimes we have to leave family for others,” she shrugs at this, toes flexing as she tries to wrap her legs around his. It’s more difficult in a tub, with the walls seeming to close in, as a bed is free and what she envisions as a field of poppies; an endless expanse of freedom where rules are forbidden and everything transitions from wonderful to amazing and back again. “Though,” she grins, moving to press her chin against his shoulder, close to his ear, “it doesn’t mean I want you to leave. Not even in the slightest.”

He turns to look at her, hands settling on hers, as he seems to lean back into her. He needs the proof, she thinks, that look on her face to match the tone of her voice and the weight of her words. She feels her chin sinking into the flesh of his shoulder, and she hopes that maybe that’s enough to convince him.

“Whatever this is,” she closes her eyes, bangs seeming to flick off the top of her head and fling to her forehead to stick to, “it’s been great. Like real great,” she grins, opening her eyes, blinking against some of the strands threatening to poke her, “and no matter what happens later, whether you move on or find your way back to someone, I won’t regret it. Not one bit. Not even if I have to attend some wedding.”

Furrowing his brows, the corner of his lip turns up, “I’m not the marryin’ type. And what you’re saying, Taylor, is bullshit. Feedin’ me destiny by giving me a cryptic definition? Not your smartest move yet.”

“Oh,” she grins, a laugh escaping her, and he leans further into her, pushing her slowly to rest back against the slope of the tub, “what has been my smartest move to date?”

She watches his dry eyelashes as he blinks, that shit-eating grin that fills Dillon warmth in her pulls easily at his mouth, “This.” Tim shifts, water lapping violently, and he’s on his side as he presses a kiss to her shoulder. He laughs “Whatever this is” from her shoulder to her neck, teeth nipping at her jaw as he tries to twist. She sends her legs to the far sides of the tub in an attempt to help him. 

She rolls her eyes, “You know how I like definitions.”

“You know how I like to tease,” he grins against her mouth, hands settling on either side of her deep in the tub. “Besides, not everything needs a definition, Taylor.”

She shrugs, her hands curling into his shoulders, “Sometimes it helps for future purposes.”

He grins, shifting to sit on his knees, hands on her legs as they’re pressed to the sides of the tub, “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

She blinks, eyes opening into slits as he presses open-mouthed kisses to her mouth, the corner of her lips, and the tip of her nose, “But you’re leaving.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he pulls back, fingers pressing hard against her knee. His eyes scan her face before dipping to kiss her chin, lining her jaw with kisses before crossing her cheek to glide sloppily to the corner of her lip.

“It still feels the same,” she says, half against his mouth as he slowly moves to settle his against hers. “Still feels like this is goodbye.”

“It’s not,” he presses his nose to hers, before replacing it with his lips, and leans his forehead to hers. “It’s not, Taylor. I suggest you stop readin’ those romance novels you keep stashed under your bed.”

She laughs, “Same can be said for those special magazines slipped so carelessly under my couch.”

“They’re for show,” his hand lifts from her knee, finger flicking drops of water down the side of her face as he traces her skin from her hairline to her ear. “Don’t need them when you’re livin’ with a goddess.”

She laughs, hands flat against his shoulders as she tries to push him half-heartedly away, “Does that line always work?”

He shrugs, “Depends.” He shifts, settling on his knees, hands drifting away from her skin to cup her face as he tilts her head to the slightest angle so she’s looking at him. “See, Jules, here’s the thing. This isn’t goodbye, because I’m not sentimental and I don’t quit. Goodbye is quittin’. I don’t say goodbye. This isn’t goodbye, because I like you, Jules, like _really_ like you. We may not know what this thing is, but it’s fun – the good, real kind, like a livin’-together relationship or somethin’, I don’t know,” he laughs, the pads of his fingers running across her cheeks. She presses her lips together, blinking after long moments to stop that ridiculous burning in her eyes. “But this isn’t goodbye, because I’m not done with you yet.”

She closes her eyes, feeling a tear push through due to the force, and his thumb catches it against her cheek. She smiles, laughs breaths of air as she opens her eyes to see him smiling at her a little shy, face tinted a light pink, “You know when to say the right things.”

He shrugs, that comical expression on his face as his grin widens, exposing his teeth, “I’m not completely incompetent.”

She laughs, shaking her head, “Definitely not.”

*

She wakes at five and shifts, the sheets loose around her as her heart sinks like lead to her chest. She stills, that loss of an arm anchoring her down around her waist is a ghost press that is already fading. Like footprints on a beach, Tim’s touches are fading with the crash of waves competing to get further up the sand. It’s happening all too quickly. She wraps an arm tightly across her abdomen to wish the sensation back.

He’s supposed to be gone by now, probably waiting at the airport for his plane to be announced. She regrets not going with him, sitting in the taxi at the early hour of three just so she could spend a few hours with her head on his shoulder as she drifts back to a nerve-wracking sleep. She closes her eyes to picture it, to relive it, as though she can simply drift back and feel everything; already, as she remembers the curve of his mouth as he laid beside her, hands in her hair, eyes a touch sad, when he tells her to stay, because it’s hard enough for him as it is and leaving her alone in an airport at five-forty-five in the morning isn’t how he wants to leave them.

_Them_ causes the butterflies in her stomach to erupt and shriek weeks too late.

She presses her face further into the pillow with a groan, feeling tired, her eyelids weighing against her dry eyes – the kind of dryness that follows after crying Justin Timberlake rivers, and she thinks he’ll be proud that she managed to find the CD among her underwear – and she shifts, unsettled, suddenly restless. Pressing her lips together, Julie turns to face where Tim once lay.

There’s a lump that she doesn’t remember ever being there before; before Tim, before this, before she wasn’t so alone. She furrows her brows, fisting her hand and pressing hard against her eyes. The lump shifts, and it starts to register in the fogginess of her reminiscing that this lump looks familiar, however she doesn’t remember seeing it too much in the past.

She jabs at it, hitting what she knows is a shoulder the second she pulls her finger away, and it shifts, the bed moving, as it rolls a little to press against the pillow. Slapping hair, she shoots up, sheets falling from her body as she pokes and hits again. 

“Jesus,” the hair disappears as a faint face in the night glows, “you hit so fucking hard.”

Julie narrows her eyes, “Didn’t my phone alarm go off?”

Tim buries his face further into the pillow, hand pushing against his ear before falling to the bed. He shrugs, and she hits him again. “Stop hitting me. M’tryin’ to sleep, dammit.”

She shifts onto her knees, eyes narrowed and confusion burning so brightly within her she doesn’t know why she feels chilled. “You missed your fucking flight, idiot,” she hits him between the shoulder blades. Bare shoulder blades that suggest he didn’t move a goddamn muscle last night. “Jesus, Tim, what the fuck?”

He shifts so she can see his face barely lit by the early hours of the morning shining through her bare windows. “If this is what I have to wake up to every day, then I may take up the couch again.”

Breathing in, she tries to quench the urge to let her entire being shake, that sense of adrenaline she only felt in P.E. settles uncomfortably within her. “What are you doing here?” she clenches her teeth around it, trying to filter out the _fuck_ and _bastard_.

Shrugging, he licks his lips and shifts, pushing himself to settle on his side. He tilts with exhaustion, eyes blinking sluggishly as his voice slurs with sleep, “Decided to stay.”

“How come? Billy needs you,” she grips the sheet crumpled thickly at her knees.

Tim shrugs, “I like pissing Billy off, and I like being with you. Was a win-win situation when I thought about it.”

“When did you think of this stupid plan of yours?”

Another lift of his shoulders, he runs his hand lazily up his face, pushing against his nose before slapping it against the bed, “In the tub, with you writhing against me.” He grins at this, and she glares daggers, trying to will him off the bed as she clenches her fingers into the sheets.

“I wasn’t writhing as much as you pushing me into the tub,” she forces herself to breathe in loudly, her lungs uncomfortable with the lack of air she’s allowing herself to inhale. _What Lies Beneath_ has gone missing from beneath a pillow on the couch and she’s not so sure she’s proud of how she forgot it was even there. Tim likes to incorporate some really stupid shit into his humour. “And you were meant to go back home.”

He pushes himself towards her, arm wrapping around her waist, fingers pushing against the fabric of her tank top to settle on her back, “I am home,” he rolls his eyes at her as he pulls her down the bed, lying diagonal across it. “Now shut up, you’re worse than a hangover.”

“So glad I can compare to that,” she rolls her eyes, tucking herself against him as Tim pulls his pillow to the edge of the bed. He lies diagonal with her, legs slipping between hers and twisting them together.

He presses his mouth against hers, “Shh, Taylor,” running his hands through her hair, he closes his eyes and grins, “Some of us need our beauty sleep.”

She hits him on the nose.

*

She sits on the stairs with his white 33 shirt on, watching the world outside and its vague changes. Tim settles behind her, legs appearing at the sides of her, and he runs his hands down her arms to settle on her waist. “See something you like out there?”

She shrugs, “Just thinking,” she says as she leans into him. 

“Yeah,” he smiles, his hands fiddling with hers, “what about?”

Julie swallows before she says anything about how she’s been wondering about Carla and his conversation about whatever it was when they weren’t speaking like two teenaged best friends. “Just what you and Carla were talking about when we weren’t speaking.”

Tim sighs and seems to pull himself back. “Just stuff.”

“What kind of stuff? Me stuff? I don’t know her, so I’m just wondering if I need to avoid her when I go and get my mail.”

“You don’t get your mail.”

“I’m just saying.”

He shrugs, “I dunno. We just spoke. Mostly about you and what I could do to fix the situation between us while remaining indifferent. You’re not the same person you were in Dillion, so, I guess, I just didn’t know how to approach it.”

“You could’ve asked me.”

“I know,” he sighs into her hair.

Julie pouts, “I’m not _that_ scary.”

Tim laughs, “You don’t know how wrong you are.”

“Next time, just come talk to me, okay?” she turns in his arms to look at his face. He’s looking down at her, nodding. 

“What makes you think there will be a next time?” he tries to joke, sort of puffs out some air in the form of a laugh. 

She turns in his arms to settle back against him, “You’ll realise soon that I’m a Taylor, and fire flows through our veins. So fights with me are inevitable.” Julie looks out the window and thinks she sees the sky has changed, as the clouds look thinner.

“Don’t forget the sex.” 

So it definitely hasn’t in the last five minutes.

*

Julie sits on the stairs reading a book while Tim shuffles around in her room. He claims he’s looking for the calendar that isn’t stuck up on the wall in the kitchen, and for some reason it grew legs and walked up the staircase straight into her bedroom. 

He huffs, almost shouting “You know, for weeks I’ve been trying to guess where you go.” He’s putting the boxes under her bed back, coming over to her with empty hands. When he sits next to her and flicks at her book she knows this is the time to close it.

“Yeah?” she places it between them, and then looks at him, amusement on her features as Tim runs a hand through his hair. “Where has that lead you?”

“Nowhere,” he says, eyebrows almost burrowing into his hairline. This has been bugging him, she assumes, and she can’t help the tiny laugh that escapes.

“I’m not a spy or anything,” she says before Tim can even open his mouth. “It’s just something I like doing.”

He pushes his legs to extend, feet landing two steps away, “Like what?”

She shrugs, “You may think it’s silly.”

“Come on,” he brushes the back of her hand along her cheek. “Trust me a little, Taylor.”

She looks down at her bent knees, “I teach dance to kids with Vanessa, down at her apartment.”

“What’s so silly about that?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know. I’m not dancing myself.”

Tim runs a hand over his face, mumbling “Why is that?” as if he’s trying to figure it out on his own. He’s been doing okay so far. She’s seen the little marks on the calendar that has been in her underwear drawer since last night. With little _‘4PM: Gone. 6PM: Return.’_ scribbled so tiny it’d have fooled her if he actually _had_ a reason to mark things on her calendar. 

“Mom was having some trouble with Gracie, and I thought that she may need me, so I needed to clear my schedule,” she runs a hand through her hair. “She did need me, but she didn’t _need_ me, you know? Dad was perfectly capable with handling it, so, I just figured I’d take this job up while I wait for my chance to get back into it.”

He tilts his head and looks at her, hand in his hair, “Do you enjoy it?”

“Yeah. Very much,” she smiles, and suddenly feels as warm as the sun. “I like getting to know the girls, and spending time with Vanessa is always a bonus.” She looks at him, brushes the bits of his hair that are standing up due to his hands always running through it. “She was the first person I met out here who I could relate to, so when she asked me if I could help her out, I felt like I owed her. Which I know is ridiculous, but it kept us together instead of tearing us apart.” Julie picks up her book and places it on the windowsill beside her as an excuse not to look at him when she says “It’s like falling in love all over again.”

In the faint reflection she sees Tim smile, “I can’t begin to wonder what that’s like.”

She turns to look at him, eyebrows pinched, “You never thought about coaching football?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head, and his hand is about to slide through his hair before she slaps it away and wiggles her finger at him. He laughs. “Just thought I’d play it. I’m not much of a planner.”

She shrugs, settling her hand behind her, “You’d be a good coach.”

“Yeah? Well, I was taught by the best.”

She rolls her eyes and flicks his ear, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“We’re halfway there,” he motions to the staircase.

Julie shakes her head. “If you’re interested, the next time Vanessa needs me, you can come.”

“I’d love to.”

*

Tim’s sitting on the kitchen table, a gossip magazine between his hands as he flips it dramatically, “Am I gettin’ tickets?”

She shrugs, moving pillows from the couch to try and find her phonebook. “Maybe,” she sighs, the stress of dance pushes heavily in her head even though she has a month to spare before it abducts her life. “You plan on sticking around that long?”

Tim laughs, shaking his head, and flicks past two pages of the glossy magazine she’s read at least four times, “You don’t need to test me, Jules. You know the answer.”

Straightening up, Julie runs a hand through her hair, narrowing her eyes as she surveys the apartment, “Where is it?”

“What?” Tim keeps his eyes on a page, pulling the magazine up closer to his face as though the lighting is poor or maybe he’s just so out of practice with reading he needs the words to press against his skin to sink into his head.

Rolling her eyes, Julie grips the sides of her dress, “My phonebook.”

Tim shrugs, palms flat and shoulders lift a little too high as his eyebrows rise and he’s trying to bite back a grin. “Dunno, you left it somewhere.”

“You better not have lost it,” she glares, jogging up the stairs with Tim laughing behind her.

“You love pointing the finger at me,” he yells to her, and she pulls apart her bed, finding her little black book nowhere to be found underneath the blankets. Tim sighs, real loud and exaggerated and she pauses as she tries to hear movement, a clue, something, because Tim Riggins knows something and he’s taking enjoyment out of her misery. “Maybe check the bathroom.” She hears the rustling of pages fluttering together and the crease between her brows deepens, “Maybe it’s up there …”

She walks into her bathroom to find his toothbrush sitting in a little nook beside hers.

*

There is the Billy Issue.

They have this routine where she says “You can’t avoid it any longer” and holds the phone out to Tim. He acts like it’s some gun, moving away and dodging it. It becomes a game Julie doesn’t mind playing, but she pretends to be frustrated and grunts and sighs and tells him “You can’t avoid things in life” over and over in her best Eric Taylor voice.

Eventually, in a week, something in Tim snaps and gets his brain finally working as he starts figuring out that avoiding the Billy Issue will only make shit hit the fan harder and he can’t really deal with shit exploding anymore. “Talk to him,” Julie tells him, taking Tyra’s authority and mixing it in with her own. “Or I’ll start sending him body parts.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he laughs, sloppily dodging the phone in one last attempt. 

“You avoiding this doesn’t make any sense,” she thrusts the phone at him and he looks at it, big grin on his face, before he takes the phone off of her and stares at it.

“Fine. But I’m stayin’ down here.”

“Fine by me,” Julie shrugs as he goes upstairs. “You better eat, Tim!”

She makes her way to the staircase. He snaps his fingers and a “Damn” floats up to her.

The conversation lasts for maybe a good twenty minutes. She lies down on her bed and grabs the book on the night stand. She hears his footsteps before his voice and Tim’s listening to Billy, nodding, rolling his eyes, dusting things with his hands, before he sighs “Adios” and he clicks off the phone.

Tim sighs again, as if to show her that he does want her to prod and pry, and lets the phone hang by his side, running a hand through his hair, which indicates that Billy must’ve hit the roof. 

“Everything okay?” she asks from her place on the bed. She’s leaning against the headboard trying to finish a book Tyra sent her.

Tim flops down onto the bed beside her, shifting until he’s right near her. His elbow supports his head as he lies on his side, the pillow being squashed by his waist. “Well, Billy’s pissed.”

“You should’ve gone back,” she places the book to the side of her, out of his reach. He sometimes likes to flick through the pages and read aloud. 

Tim shakes his head, “Nah. Billy needs to learn how to hold down the fort. Though I think the Mini Billy is stressin’ him out a little.”

“He just wants an outlet for his infamous Riggins temper?” She closes the book and places it beside her, away from Tim. He likes to flick through the pages and quote things to her from her books.

Tim grins, smirking, “Seems like it.” 

He tries to lift himself to see over her. She quirks her eyebrow, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to see what you were readin’.”

“You could’ve just asked.”

He shrugs, looking up at her, “Where’s the fun in that?” He pushes himself up and sort of crawls over her, placing his hands either side of her to hold himself up. He presses his nose against hers and pulls himself over her so he is lying down across her. Julie doesn’t know where to place her hands while he wriggles to make himself comfortable.

Once he’s done she places her hands on his back as he flicks through the book. “Tyra sent it to me.”

“Fantastic readin’ material,” he flicks the front cover of the book before flicking to the page his thumb is bookmarking, “however, it’s not as great as _The Scarlet Letter_.”

“Is that so?” she smiles.

“Very so.”

She clicks her fingers for the book and he passes it to her so she can place it on the nightstand. Julie crosses her hands over her chest to gain some sort of confidence, to feel grounded, like she’s ready for the brutal honesty Tim seems to preach as much as his ‘Texas Forever’. “So are you okay with your decision to stay here?”

“Yeah,” he shifts, moving himself up the bed slightly. “Definitely am.”

She rolls her eyes at herself as he starts drawing things on her legs. “No regrets?”

“No regrets.”


End file.
